UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


JEAN    KAPTISTK    LE   MOYNE, 
SIEUR   DE    BIENVILLE. 


"MAKERS   OF  AMERICA" 


JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE 
SIEUR    DE    BIENVILLE 


BY 

GRACE    KING 

AUTHOR  OF  "MONSIEUR  MOTTE,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,   MEAD    AND    COMPANY 
1893 


"0800 


Copyright,  1892, 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY, 


All  rights  reserved. 


SSntotrsttg  $3rrss: 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON.  CAMBRIDGE. 


THE  STUDENTS  OF  TULANE  UNIVERSITY, 

OF  LOUISIANA, 


ficcorb  of  tfje  fust  <J5oternor  of  tbe 
/S   DEDICATED. 


PREFACE. 


THE  circumscribed  limits  of  this  volume  make  a 
word  of  preface  necessary  for  that  general  submission 
of  authorities  and  credentials  of  which  particular  note 
could  not  be  made. 

Apart  from  official  documents,  Bienville  has  no 
bibliography,  except  the  short  account  of  him  con- 
tained in  the  "  Histoire  de  Longueuil  et  de  la  Famille 

^   de   Longueuil,"   by   Messrs.    Alex.   Jodoin  and  J.   L. 

D  Vincent.  It  is  to  these  excellent,  painstaking  com- 
pilers that  we  are  indebted  for  the  publication  in  book 

j    form  of  the  only  two  unofficial  documents  of  Bienville 

i  in  existence,  —  a  letter  to  his  brother,  and  his  will ; 
also,  for  much  new  and  interesting  information  about 
Charles  Le  Moyne  and  his  family.  The  authors  explain 
the  lack  of  fuller  and  more  private  details  of  this  his- 
torical family  by  the  destruction  of  their  accumulations 
of  papers  in  Montreal,  in  order  to  clear  out  a  garret 
needed  for  the  quartering  of  troops  during  the  affair 
of  the  "  Trent." 

For  official  documents,  recourse  was  had  directly  to 
the  two  separate  transcriptions  made  from  the  originals 
in  the  Archives  de  la  Marine,  by  M.  Pierre  Margry  and 


vi  PREFACE. 

M.  Magne,  for  the  State  of  Louisiana,  now  in  the  li- 
brary of  the  Tulane  University  of  Louisiana.  These, 
superadded  to  M.  Margry's  "  Explorations  et  Decou- 
vertes,"  with  his  resume  of  the  times  and  circumstances 
contained  in  the  introductory  notes  of  the  fifth  and 
sixth  volumes,  form  a  clear  and  almost  perfect  docu- 
mentary history  of  the  French  settlement  of  Louisiana. 
Use  was  made  of  the  "Journal  Historique  "  whenever 
dates  and  facts  tallied  with  the  above  authorities.  The 
rich  historical  French  library  of  Tulane  University,  which 
contains  all  and  more  of  the  bibliography  of  Louisiana 
cited,  furnished  the  general  information. 

The  labours  of  an  archiviste  of  Pans,  employed  to 
discover  some  traces  of  Bienville  after  his  retirement 
to  that  city,  were  fruitless.  The  parish  registers  which 
might  have  given  a  clew  to  his  residence  were  burned 
in  the  Hotel  de  Ville  in  1871.  The  registers  of  Mont- 
martre  Cemetery,  which  might  have  revealed  the  loca- 
tion of  his  tomb,  are  also  missing. 

No  Louisiana  historical  question  can  be  treated  with- 
out tributary  homage  to  the  Hon.  Charles  Gayarre. 
It  may  be  said  that  it  is  he,  the  former  of  the  State 
Library,  the  devoted  collector  of  archives  and  tradi- 
tions, and,  for  half  a  century,  the  indefatigable  explorer 
in  colonial  records,  who  has  made  intelligent  work 
in  Louisiana  history  possible  to  the  present  genera- 
tion. Acknowledgment  is  made  to  him  with  sincere 

gratitude. 

GRACE  KING 

PARIS,  April  5,  1892. 


JEAN   BAPTISTE    LE  MOYNE, 
SIEUR   DE    BIENVILLE.1 


CHAPTER   I. 

JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE,  the  son  of  Charles  le 
Moyne,  ecuyer,  Sieur  de  Longueuil,  and  of  Dame 
Catherine  Primot,  his  wife,  was  born  at  Ville  Marie, 
Canada,  on  the  23d  of  February,  1680,  and  baptized, 
according  to  the  parish  registry,  the  same  day,  having 
for  godfather  Jean  le  Ber,  son  of  Jacques  le  Ber,  and 
for  godmother  Marianne  Jeanne  de  Carrion,  daughter 
of  Philippe  de  Carrion,  Sieur  du  Fresnoy.  He  was  the 
twelfth  child  and  eighth  son  of  his  parents. 

Charles  le  Moyne  and  Catherine  Primot  belonged  to 
that  sturdy  emigrant  stock  which,  yielding  the  Cana- 
dians the  first  and  best  fruits  of  French  blood  on 
American  soil  furnished  a  race  of  pioneers  to  the  New 
World  unsurpassed,  if  not  unequalled,  by  any  that  its 
history  chronicles. 

When  one  says  Canadian,  one  says  Norman,  and 
when  one  says  Norman,  one  says  Scandinavian.  And 
for  bold  hardihood,  valour,  and  endurance  ;  for  dauntless 

1  Histoire  de  Longueuil  et  de  la  Famille  Longueuil,  par  Alex. 
Jodoin  et  J.  L.  Vincent. 


2  JEAN  BAPT1STE   LE   MOYNE, 

enterprise,  persistent  effort,  and  unextinguishable  de- 
termination, —  for  all  the  rugged,  crude  essentials  of 
primitive  virility,  these  recrudescent  adventurers  loom 
up  in  the  dawn  of  American  settlement  with  the  huge 
distinction  and  gigantic  proportions  of  their  Homeric 
ancestors.  Without  exaggeration  it  may  be  said,  what 
France  gained  in  America,  she  gained  through  her  Nor- 
mans ;  what  she  lost,  she  lost  in  her  own  capital. 

It  was  from  the  town  of  Dieppe  that  Charles  le  Moyne 
issued.  He  was  the  son  of  Pierre  le  Moyne  and 
Judith  Duchesne,  and  was  baptized  in  the  parish 
church  of  St.  Remi  de  Dieppe  on  the  2d  of  August, 
1626,  receiving,  it  is  carefully  stated,  the  name  of 
Charles  from  the  honourable  man,  Charles -le  Doux, 
his  godfather. 

When  he  was  about  seven  years  of  age,  his  parents 
moved  from  the  parish  of  St.  Remi  to  that  of  St. 
Jacques,  —  the  patron  saint  of  fishermen,  — the  quarter 
of  the  seafaring  folk.  Here  they  kept  an  hostelry. 

Ever  since  the  days  of  Champlain,  Dieppe  had  been 
one  of  the  busiest  stations  on  the  road  from  the  Old 
France  to  the  New.  Through  the  little  Norman  sea- 
port, as  through  a  bunghole,  gushed  a  constant  stream 
of  emigration,  the  overflow  from  the  effervescent  popu- 
lation inside.  Its  streets  were  thronged,  its  iiostelries 
crowded,  by  the  outgoing,  waiting  for  a  bark  ;  by  the  in- 
coming, for  post-horses.  Ship  after  ship  loaded  at  its 
quay,  —  an  overload  generally  of  passengers  aureoled 
in  advance  by  the  spectators  not  only  with  heavenly 
crowns,  but  with  the  more  tangible  ones  of  earth,  — 
adventurers  seeking  a  new  chance  at  life,  fame,  and 
fortune ;  merchants  and  scientists,  grave  with  secret 


SI  EUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  3 

theories  of  transatlantic  finances  and  physics  ;  soldiers, 
Government  appointees,  priests,  singly  or  in  company 
with  fervent  bands  of  devotees,  inflamed,  if  not  inspired, 
to  Christianize  the  distant  savages  out  of  the  powers  of 
hell  and  the  devil. 

It  is  easily  conceived  what  the  greedy  ears  and  in- 
quisitive eyes  of  a  precocious  lad  would  pick  up  in  such 
scenes.  It  is  not  conceivable  that  an  enterprising  lad 
should  hold  back  at  such  a  time  and  such  a  place  ;  for 
under  the  impulse  of  the  Socie'te'  de  Ville  Marie,  Dieppe 
was  furnishing,  not  only  the  means,  but  the  subjects  for 
emigration  from  her  own  and  neighbouring  precincts.  In 
1641,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  Charles  Le  Moyne,  joining  a 
band  of  his  townspeople,  shipped  for  Quebec,  where  a 
maternal  uncle,  Adrien  Duchesne,  had  established  him- 
self some  twenty  years  before.  By  taking  service  with 
the  Jesuits,  he  opened  his  career  in  the  New  World  with 
a  shrewdness  which  testifies  that  he  had  •  profited  by 
hearsay  in  the  Old.  The  Jesuits  sent  him  into  the 
country  of  the  Hurons,  where  he  remained  four  years, 
at  the  end  of  which  he  received  his  pay ;  according  to 
the  journal  of  the  Jesuits,  —  twenty  crowns  and  his 
clothing.  But  the  knowledge  of  Indian  dialects  and 
characteristics,  and  of  the  physical,  moral,  and  commer- 
cial features  of  the  country  acquired  during  this  term  of 
service,  furnished  the  capital  out  of  which  he  drew  his 
prosperous  future. 

Le  Moyne  passed  on  to  Trois  Rivieres  in  the  multiple 
capacity  of  trader,  soldier,  and  interpreter,  —  a  combina- 
tion of  sails  which  could  not  fail  to  catch  some  breeze  of 
fortune.  The  following  year  he  entered  into  the  service 
of  the  Socie'te'  de  Ville  Marie  on  the  then  exposed  and 


4  JEAN  BAPTISTS   LE  MOYNE, 

frontier  site  of  the  present  Montreal.  His  loyalty  and 
courage,  his  skill  and  address  in  dealing  with  the  Indians, 
his  yquth,  strength,  and  spirit,  are  all  faithfully  transcribed 
by  his  patrons.  He  must  indeed  have  soon  made  himself 
indispensable  to  the  exalted  pietists,  who  needed  all  the 
support  of  their  visions  and  miracles  to  enable  them  to 
cope  with  such  elements  of  evil  as  beset  them  round 
about  in  the  bloodthirsty  Iroquois  and  the  hardly  less 
cruel  rigours  of  the  Canadian  climate.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  in  their  acute  need  for  such  a  servitor  they 
should  attribute  his  presence  among  them  to  the  direct 
interposition  of  Providence  on  their  behalf.  But  they 
did  not  limit  their  gratitude,  nor  remit  Le  Moyne's  re- 
muneration, to  Providence.  However  much  his  daring 
with  the  Indians  had  commended  him  to  their  revenges, 
and  however  thick  the  crowns  of  saints  and  martyrs  fell 
about  him,  his  mundane  shrewdness  enabled  him  to 
avoid  them,  while  his  thrift  worked  out  his  pecuniary 
profit.  At  the  age  of  twenty-eight  he  found  himself 
not  only  celebrated  in  his  small  world  on  account  of  his 
fights  and  treaties  with  the  Indians,  but  in  addition  the 
possessor  of  money  and  the  proprietor  of  a  rich  conces- 
sion, —  consequently,  in  a  position  to  marry.  Such  men 
marry  well. 

Catherine  Tierry  was  the  adopted  daughter  of  Antoine 
Primot  and  Marline  Messier,  a  worthy  and  well-to-do 
couple  of  the  diocese  of  Rouen,  who,  responding  to  the 
call  of  the  time,  determined  to  devote  their  lives  to 
the  work  of  Ville  Marie.  Being  childless,  they  obtained 
the  one-year-old  babe  from  her  parents,  and  fetched  her 
across  the  ocean  with  them  in  1642',  —  one  year  after  the 
emigration  of  her  future  husband. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  5 

The  little  one  grew  and  throve  in  the  desperate  con- 
ditions about  her ;  the  crack  of  the  gun,  the  terrors  of 
Indian  warfare,  alternating,  when  there  was  an  alterna- 
tion, only  with  the  sound  of  the  church-bell  and  the 
ascetic  enjoyment  of  devotion.  She  acquired  the  edu- 
cational necessities  of  the  period,  and  expanded  into 
such  virtue  and  modesty,  according  to  the  chronicle, 
such  beauty  of  person  and  character,  and  such  rich  re- 
ligious development,  as  made  her  at  fourteen  the  most 
promising  wife  and  mother  in  the  settlement.  Le  Moyne 
asked  her  in  marriage  ;  and  in  order,  the  chronicle  says, 
to  secure  the  preference  over  any  other  wooer,  contracted 
by  notarial  act,  dated  Dec.  10,  1653,  to  marry  her 
shortly  after  that  date,  putting  up  six  hundred  livres  as 
forfeit-money.  The  adopted  parents,  no  less  anxious  to 
secure  so  advantageous  a  son-in-law,  guaranteed  their 
good  faith  by  a  like  amount.  Monsieur  Maisonneuve 
and  Mademoiselle  Mance,  the  spiritual  father  and  mother 
of  the  settlement,  signed  their  names,  with  other  wit- 
nesses, to  the  paper.  Events  justified  the  estimation 
of  all  parties  and  the  importance  to  the  settlement 
of  the  event.  The  marriage  was  duly  celebrated  during 
the  next  six  months ;  it  is  recorded  in  the  registry  of 
the  church  of  Notre-Dame,  Montreal.  A  marriage  so 
creditable  to  their  nascent  city  received  more  than  verbal 
approbation  from  the  seigneurs  of  Ville  Marie.  Mon- 
sieur de  Maisonneuve  in  their  name  presented  the  newly 
wedded  ones  with  a  concession  of  ninety  arpents  of  land, 
between  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Jean  Saint-Pere  rivers, 
comprising  Pointe  Saint-Charles,  —  so  named  henceforth 
for  Le  Moyne. 

The  chronicle  now  proceeds,  in  a  double  column,  to 


0  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

itemize  the  ever-ascending  account  of  financial  and 
domestic  prosperity.  A  few  years  after  the  marriage, 
the  concession  of  the  present  seat  of  the  family  was 
obtained.  It  was  erected  into  a  seigneury,  and  named 
Longueuil  from  the  arrondissement  in  Normandy  in 
which  Dieppe  stood,  and  in  1676  the  letters  of  no- 
bility were  granted  which  made  Charles  Le  Moyne  Sieur 
de  Longueuil. 

None  the  less,  soldier,  trader,  and  interpreter,  he  ex 
tended  the  range  of  his  activities  and  services  from 
Ville  Marie  to  the  whole  of  Canada  ;  and  while  figuring 
in  every  account  of  the  Indian  fights,  treaties,  and  expe- 
ditions of  the  time,  —  wounded  and  captured  also  once,  — 
he  continued  his  shrewd  financial  ventures  and  acquisi- 
tions of  land,  accumulating  that  provision  of  fiefs  and 
dowers  which  his  ambition  and  foresight  deemed  neces- 
sary for  his  sons  and  daughters,  —  an  ever-increasing  list ; 
Dame  Catherine  keeping  up  her  tally  well,  of  wife  and 
mother,  as  she  had  promised. 

Le  Moyne  died  in  1685.  His  wife,  bravely  carrying 
on  his  business  after  him,  survived  him  but  five  years. 
The  inventory  of  the  estate  was  princely  for  the  period 
and  place,  —  domains,  silver,  and  commejrcial  establish- 
ments. But  it  is  not  this,  nor  his  title  of  nobility,  that 
makes  the  Dieppe  tavern-keeper's  son  important  or 
interesting  to  us,  it  is  that  tally,  the  keeping  of  which 
was  confided  to  Dame  Catherine,  —  the  list  of  sons 
and  daughters,  of  whom  it  may  be  said,  with  a  re- 
trospective view  of  their  good  parental  equipment  of 
strength,  sense,  and  effectiveness,  that  no  marriage 
ever  contracted  within  her  limits  had  ever  been  so 
profitable  to  Canada  as  that  of  Charles  Le  Moyne  and 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  7 

Catherine  Primot.  Of  the  twelve  sons,  nine  live  distin- 
guished in  history,  three  were  killed  on  the  field  of  battle, 
and  three  became  governors  of  cities  or  provinces.  Their 
names  are  as  follows :  Charles,  Sieur  de  Longueuil ; 
Jacques,  Sieur  de  Sainte-He'lene ;  Pierre,  Sieur  d'lber- 
ville ;  Paul,  Sieur  de  Maricourt ;  Francois,  Sieur  de 
Bienville  I. ;  Joseph,  Sieur  de  Serigny ;  Louis,  Sieur  de 
Chateauguay  I.;  Jean  Baptiste,  Sieur  de  Bienville  II.; 
Antoirie,  Sieur  de  Chateauguay  IL ;  Francois  Marie, 
Sieur  de  Sauvole.  There  were  two  daughters.  Cathe- 
rine Jeanne  married  Pierre  Payen,  Seigneur  of  Noyan, 
of  the  noble  house  of  Chavoy,  captain  of  marines  and 
Chevalier  of  Saint  Louis.  She  was  the  mother  of  the  De 
Noyans  whose  connection  with  their  uncle  De  Bienville, 
and  whose  fortunes  and  misfortunes  in  Louisiana,  are  still 
the  subject  of  local  romance  there.  Marie  Anne  married 
the  Sieur  de  la  Chassaigne,  captain  in  the  marine,  Cheva- 
lier of  Saint  Louis,  and  afterwards  governor  of  Trois 
Rivieres. 

The  subject  of  our  biography,  as  has  been  seen,  was 
but  five  years  old  when  he  lost  his  father ;  at  ten  he  was 
completely  orphaned.  There  are  no  childhood  records 
of  these  men.  Their  history  begins  with  their  fighting 
majority,  which  they  fixed  themselves  according  to 
their  spirit  and  their  physical  endowment ;  before  this 
period  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  dates.  De  Bienville  him- 
self says l  that  the  only  father  he  ever  knew  was  his 
eldest  brother,  Charles,  Sieur  and  later  Baron  of  Lon- 
gueuil, with  whom  he  presumably  lived  before,  and  cer- 
tainly after,  their  mother's  death  in  1690. 

1  Letter  to  the  Baron  de  Longueuil,  dated  Louisiana,  ad  Oct., 
1713  (Histoirede  Longueuil).  This  letter  is  given  in  full  later. 


8  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

This  was  the  year  in  which  the  great  fortress-chateau 
of  Longueuil  was  finished,  —  the  refuge  and  wonder  of 
stateliness  for  the  country  round ;  built  all  in  brick  and 
masonry,  with  walls  and  towers,  guard-rooms  and  bar- 
racks, handsome  church,  farmyard,  stables,  sheepfolds, 
dovecotes,  etc.,  decorated  with  all  the  insignia  of  no- 
bility, as  enumerated  in  the  letter  of  Louis  XIV.  which 
conferred  the  title  of  baron  on  the  possessor.  Elevated 
by  all  the  height  of  one  generation  above  the  humble 
class  from  which  his  father  sprang,  the  second  Sieur  de 
Longueuil  lived  up  to  all  the  honours  and  duties  of  his 
position  with  the  thoroughness  of  a  descendant  of  the 
Crusaders.  Not  in  the  rough  wars  of  Canada,  but  in  the 
elegant  campaign  of  Flanders,  did  he  serve  his  appren- 
ticeship as  page  of  the  Mare'chal  d'Humieres.  He  had 
not  only  been  to  the  court  of  the  Great  Monarch,  but 
with  his  Indian  attendant  had  figured  there,  as  related 
by  the  Duchess  of  Orleans  in  one  of  her  letters  to  her 
sister,  the  Countess  Palatine  Louise  ;  and  he  married 
no  bourgeoise  like  his  mother,  but  the  daughter  of 
a  nobleman,  Mademoiselle  Claude  Elizabeth  Souart 
d'Adoucourt,  lady  to  her  Royal  Highness  of  Orleans 
herself. 

It  is  unmistakably  to  this  house  and  to  these  surround- 
ings that  Louisiana  is  indebted  for  that  "  tenue  de  grand 
seigneur  "  of  her  young  Canadian  governor  which,  how- 
ever aggravating  to  his  enemies,  yet  throws  a  quaint 
picturesqueness  over  his  ambitions  and  character,  —  a 
picturesqueness  kept  fresh  in  the  city  he  founded  by 
occasional  haphazards,  bits  of  faded  splendour  belonging 
once  to  the  Hotel  de  Bienville,  and  by  many  a  recorded 
ceremonial  function  and  many  a  rhetorical  phrase  still 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  9 

dimly  brilliant  in  the  dusty  pages  of  official  documents 
and  private  relations  of  the  time. 

In  1691,  the  young  De  Bienville  I.  was  killed,  gallantly 
fighting  at  Repentigny.  The  eleven-year-old  Jean  Bap- 
tiste  was  invested  with  the  vacated  title,  —  an  inves- 
titure which  comprised  only  the  title,  to  judge  from  the 
stray  remarks  made  from  time  to  time  by  the  inheritor 
of  it.  De  Bienville,  as  he  is  henceforth  called,  intended 
to  pursue  his  career  upon  the  sea,  following  the  exam- 
ple of  his  brothers  D'Iberville  and  De  Serigny,  who 
were  proving  to  the  world  that  the  Canadians  were  in- 
domitable coureurs  de  mer  as  well  as  coureurs  de  bois. 
At  seventeen  he  is  mentioned  as  garde-marin,  or  mid- 
shipman, at  Brest  and  at  Rochefort,  whence  he  must 
have  sailed  with  Serigny's  squadron,  which  carried  to 
Iberville,  then  at  Placentia,  the  orders  and  the  re- 
inforcements necessary  for  another  effort  against  the 
English  establishments  of  Hudson  Bay.  He  says  he 
served  at  the  side  of  Iberville  on  this  expedition.  It  is 
an  expedition  which  French  and  Canadian  historians 
love  to  recall,  —  a  titanesque  affair,  where,  amid  all  the 
grim  terrors  of  the  Polar  regions,  after  fighting  for  three 
weeks  with  icebergs,  which  separated  him  from  his  fleet, 
the  Canadian  commander  met,  single-handed,  three 
English  vessels.  Out-sailing  and  out-manoeuvring  them. 
he  sank  one,  captured  the  other,  and  put  the  third  to 
flight.  Driven  on  the  coast  and  shipwrecked  by  a  tem- 
pest during  the  night,  he  saved  himself,  crew,  and  am- 
munition, but  no  provisions ;  the  nearest  lay  under  the 
English  flag  at  Fort  Bourbon.  He  was  marching  on 
foot  to  capture  them,  when  his  belated  fleet  arrived. 
All  proceeded  together  to  the  fort ;  took  it,  and  once 


10  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYJVE, 

more  put  the  French  flag  in  temporary  possession  of  the 
disputed  region. 

Bienville  accompanied  Iberville  to  France.  While 
the  latter  was  discharging  his  scurvy-stricken  crew  into 
the  hospital  of  Port  Louis,  he  was  sent  for  by  Maurepas  ; 
the  commission  to  discover  and  take  possession  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi  was  offered  him.  He  accepted 
it  as  summarily  as  it  was  offered,  and  for  the  new  enter- 
prise retained  Bienville  at  his  side,  as  garde-marin. 


SIEUK  DE  BIENV1LLE.  \\ 


CHAPTER  II. 
I 

THERE  was  no  time  to  lose.  The  sharp  eyes  of  the 
English  were  also  turned  towards  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. The  peace  of  Ryswick,  which  had  liberated 
French  enterprise,  liberated  theirs  no  less,  and  they 
were  as  eager  to  profit  by  the  streak  of  calm  which  fell 
over  European  politics  as  their  rivals  over  the  Channel. 
A  company  had  already  been  formed  in  London  for 
the  establishment  of  a  colonial  and  trading  post  upon 
the  banks  of  the  great  river;  English  vessels,  loaded 
with  Huguenot  emigrants,  it  was  confidently  reported  to 
Iberville,  were  on  the  point  of  sailing  to  take  possession. 
The  geographical  prize  was  evidently  to  be  to  the  swift. 
Minister  and  commander  worked  with  a  will.  Orders 
from  the  former  quickly  followed,  where  they  did  not 
precede,  requisitions  from  the  latter.  Two  small  frigates, 
the  "  Badine "  and  the  "  Marin,"  were  overhauled, 
chartered,  and  refitted.  Two  of  the  stout  Norman  fish- 
ing-boats, called  traversiers,  were  secured  as  transports. 
Crews  were  selected,  and  supernumeraries  added  by 
Iberville  himself,  —  Canadians  whom  he  knew,  fili- 
busters, Spanish  deserters  from  Mexico,  and  Spanish- 
speaking  Frenchmen.  The  usual  stock-in-trade  for  In- 
dian presents  and  barter,  the  provisions,  the  arms  and 
ammunition,  were  all  passed  under  the  same  keen  eye, 
which  could  never  tolerate  the  unforeseen  in  its  horizon. 


Vv  -• 

(>-   X 


12  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

He  made  his  preparations  not  only  to  arrive  first  at  the 
goal,  but  to  fight  for  it,  should  he  come  in  second,  and 
in  either  case  to  secure  it  and  maintain  it  against  all 
contestants.  The  expedition,  thus  fully  and  surely 
equipped,  sailed  from  Brest  on  Friday,  the  24th  of  Oc- 
tober, 1698,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  Iberville 
leading,  in  the  "  Badine,"  the  Comte  cle  Surgeres  fol- 
lowing in  the  "  Marin  ;  "  the  heavily  freighted,  slower- 
sailing  traversiers  lagging  behind. 

The  voyage  over  the  ocean  was  uneventful,  except 
for  the  disappearance  of  one  of  the  traversiers  dur- 
ing a  squall  off  Madeira.  After  a  short  search  it  was 
abandoned  as  lost,  and  the  squadron  continued  with- 
out it.  In  less  than  six  weeks  the  vessels  anchored  off 
Cape  Francois,  St.  Domingo.  Here  the  forced  calm  of 
the  voyage  was  replaced  by  a  bustling  activity.  Flour 
was  made  into  biscuits,  the  casks  were  refilled  with 
water,  and  one  of  the  long-boats  was  taken  out  of 
frame  and  mounted. 

The  corvette  "  Francois,"  commanded  by  the  Mar- 
quis de  Chateaubriand,  nephew  of  the  great  Tourville, 
reported  now  to  Iberville  for  escort  duty,  according  to 
the  orders  of  the  Minister  of  Marine ;  and  the  lost 
transport  made  her  appearance,  belated,  but  not  other- 
wise injured  from  the  squall. 

During  their  short  sojourn  on  land  the  crew  paid  the 
usual  penalty  of  mortality  to  the  heat,  eating  impru- 
dences, and  the  deadly  fever,  there  called  Siam  fever, 
which,  Iberville  wrote  to  the  Minister  of  Marine,  seemed 
to  have  a  particular  grudge  against  the  Canadians  and 
scriveners.  The  ranks  were  replenished,  however,  with 
filibusters,  —  a  class  of  men  (tropical  Canadians  they 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  13 

might  be  called)  to  whom  Iberville  ever  showed  a 
strong  inclination,  and  one  well  fitted  for  the  enter- 
prise in  view. 

Four  English  vessels  had  been  observed  cruising 
around.  Prepossessed  with  the  idea  that  they  were  on 
the  same  quest  as  he,  Iberville  pressed  his  provision- 
ment  to  a  rapid  finish;  and  on  the  first  day  of  1699, 
the  signals  were  flown  from  the  "  Badine  "  for  the  new 
start. 

Favoured  by  good  weather,  but  with  the  pestilential 
fever  still  aboard,  the  squadron  made  its  way  along  the 
coast  of  Cuba,  safely  doubled  Cape  Corriente,  gained 
the  channel  of  Yucatan,  and  passing  between  Cape  St. 
Antoine  and  Cape  Catoche,  dropped  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico. 

As  a  general  guide  over  the  waters  which  had  been 
the  field  of  his  career  for  twenty  years,  the  governor  of 
St.  Domingo  furnished  Iberville  with  Laurent  de  Graff, 
one  of  the  most  noted  filibusters  of  his  time,  and  one  of 
the  leaders  in  the  celebrated  expedition  which  had  once 
taken  Vera  Cruz  and  held  it  for  ransom. 

By  his  advice  Iberville  directed  the  course  of  the 
squadron  towards  a  fine  harbour,  discovered  by  a  fili- 
buster captain  upon  a  time  when,  making  for  St. 
Domingo,  he  had  been  driven  into  the  Gulf  by  contrary 
winds,  —  a  harbour  where  the  Spaniards  were  in  the  habit 
of  going  for  masts,  and  which,  it  was  rumoured,  had 
been  recently  taken  possession  of  by  them,  to  prevent 
any  other  nation  from  establishing  itself  there. 

According  to  Iberville's  and  his  officers'  calculations, 
this  harbour  should  be  found  almost  due  north  from 
where  their  vessels  entered  the  Gulf,  on  the  coast  of 


14  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

Florida,  somewhere  between  the  river  marked  on  their 
map  as  the  Indios,  and  the  Cabo  de  Lodo  (Mobile 
Point),  or  about  fifty  miles  west  of  the  old  Spanish  pos- 
session of  Apalache  Bay,  and  about  the  same  distance 
east  of  Mobile  Bay.  Iberville  decided  to  look  for  the 
Mississippi  in  exactly  the  same  location  as  the  Espiritu 
Santo  upon  the  early  maps,  and  no  doubt  upon  the  two 
in  his  possession. 

The  ships  sailed  cautiously  along,  feeling  their  way 
with  the  lead,  keeping  a  sharp  lookout  for  the  squalls  — 
which,  according  to  Spanish  descriptions,  made  a  hell 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  —  and  for  the  suspicious  English 
vessels,  experiencing,  however,  nothing  more  disturbing 
than  calms  and  sudden  veerings  of  the  wind,  and  seeing 
nothing  more  alarming  than  flying-fish,  and  porpoises 
sporting  under  the  beautiful  blue  waters,  or  the  gulls 
foraging  over  the  surface  of  them. 

The  officers  took  observations  and  compared  notes, 
the  men  fished,  the  frigates  heaving  to  from  time  to  time 
for  the  lagging  transports  to  catch  up,  and  all  lying  by 
at  sunset  for  the  night.  The  afternoon  of  the  twenty- 
third  day,  as  the  "  Badine  "  was  casting  anchor  for  the 
night,  land  was  sighted  in  the  northeast.  Iberville 
shouted  to  Surgeres,  on  the  "  Marin,"  to  crowd  all  sail 
towards  it  until  sunset.  At  night  the  red  glare  of  flames 
could  be  distinctly  seen  in  that  quarter,  —  prairies,  the 
Canadians  surmised,  fired  by  Indians  after  buffalo.  A 
long,  low,  half-inundated  streak  of  land,  running  east  and 
west,  came  into  view  with  daylight.  Nearer  approach 
revealed  shores  of  glistening  white  sand,  a  line  of  forest, 
a  moderately  sized  stream,  and  behind  all,  far  inland, 
the  prairies  still  smoking  from  the  night's  conflagration. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  15 

The  steering  had  been  true  to  the  point ;  the  fleet  lay 
about  south  of  Apalachicola  Bay.  The  vessels  an- 
chored for  the  night  off  Cape  San  Bias,  firing  cannon, 
to  attract  the  attention  of  any  savages  thereabouts. 

With  the  morning,  a  systematic  inspection  of  the  coast- 
line was  organized ;  Lescalette,  the  lieutenant  of  the 
"  Badine,"  rowing  in  a  barge  close  in,  sounding  and  ex- 
ploring every  opening  that  presented  itself,  the  frigates 
following  as  near  as  their  draughts  permitted,  the  cor- 
vette remaining  well  out  to  sea. 

The  river  marked  on  their  map  as  the  Indios  was 
passed,  and  league  after  league  slowly  told  off  in  the 
course  westward,  until  Lescalette  signalled,  not  only  the 
discovery  of  the  mouth  of  a  river,  but  the  portentous 
fact  that  there  were  masts  of  vessels  in  it.  The  French 
officers  in  haste  assembled  for  council  on  board  the 
man-of-war,  whose  guns,  at  the  request  of  Iberville,  gave 
the  signal  to  anchor  for  the  night.  The  frigates  and 
transports,  as  usual,  answered  with  volleys  of  musketry. 
The  vessels  in  the  distant  port  fired  off  their  guns  also, 
—  a  defiant  menace  it  sounded  to  the  French.  Then  a 
fog  fell,  and  for  hours  both  fleets  were  insulated  in  a 
common  cloud  of  ignorance  and  disquietude.  When  it 
lifted,  a  white  flag  was  seen  flying  from  one  of  the  masts 
in  the  harbour,  out  of  which  a  sloop  advanced  half  way 
towards  the  French,  paused  until  they  raised  their 
colours,  then  returned.  The  Marquis  de  Chasteaumorant, 
elaborate  in  deferential  politeness,  and  minute  in  his  deli- 
cate regard  for  the  susceptibilities  of  his  Canadian  com- 
mander, had  omitted  his  pennant,  and  all  marks  of  his 
superior  rank  from  the  "  Francois."  But  as  the  '•  Fran- 
cois "  was  the  largest  and  best-armed  vessel  in  the  squad- 


1 6  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE  MOYNE, 

ron,  and  as  the  ships  in  the  unknown  harbour  might 
be  the  English,  Iberville  requested  the  royal  commander 
to  display  his  colours  again,  which  he  did,  thus  assuming 
the  role  of  commander-in-chief,  for  the  nonce,  of  the 
expedition. 

By  daylight,  Iberville  sent  Lescalette  ashore  to  find  out 
the  name  and  nationality  of  the  establishment,  with  careful 
instructions,  however,  not  to  reveal  the  destination  or 
designs  of  the  French.  In  order  to  furnish  an  excuse  to 
enter  the  harbour,  he  was  to  represent  that  they  were  in 
need  of  wood  and  water,  that  the  frigates  were  in  search 
of  a  large  body  of  Canadians  reported  to  be  on  that 
coast,  to  whom  they  were  conveying  the  king's  order  to 
return.  The  transports  were  to  play  the  role  of  free- 
booters captured  by  the  French,  the  corvette  was  to  be 
accounted  for  as  having  joined  them  at  St.  Domingo 
upon  the  rumour  that  a  pirate  vessel  of  fifty  or  sixty  guns 
was  cruising  about  those  waters. 

And  now  the  name  of  the  young  De  Bienville  is  for- 
mally introduced  into  history  by  the  three  relations  of  the 
expedition.  "  My  brother  De  Bienville,"  and  "  the  young 
brother  of  M.  d' Iberville,"  is  henceforward  generally  well 
in  front  when  there  is  a  boat  to  be  manned,  a  message 
taken,  or  an  adventure  attempted.  He  was  sent  with 
Lescalette  to  remain  in  the  boat  and  prevent  the  crew 
having  any  communication  with  the  garrison  on  land. 
They  made  their  way  without  difficulty  past  the  sentinel, 
although  the  orders  were  to  let  no  strangers  into  the 
harbour.  Lescalette  landed,  and  was  conducted  to  the 
major  in  command.  During  his  absence,  De  Bienville, 
passing  himself  off  as  his  valet,  and  speaking  English, 
obtained  from  a  Bayonnais  such  various  informal  items 


SI  EUR   DE  BIENVILLE.  I? 

as  he  judged  might  complete,  establish,  or  refute  official 
statements.  Iberville  received,  on  their  return,  a  full 
budget  from  both. 

'The  harbour  \vas_SantaMaria  de  Galvez  de  Pensacola. 


The  Spaniards  had  been  in  possession  but  four  months. 
The  commandant  was  Don  Andres  de  la  Riola.  The 
garrison  consisted  of  about  three  hundred,  the  greater 
number  galley-slaves  and  fellows  picked  up  any  way, 
from  anywhere,  —  most  of  them  at  the  time  in  irons. 
The  frigates  in  the  harbour,  one  of  eighteen,  the  other 
of  twenty  guns,  had  fetched  the  colonists  there,  and 
were  now  ready  to  return  to  Vera  Cruz,  loaded  with 
masts.  They  had  taken  the  French  squadron  for  the 
long-expected  armadillo  from  Vera  Cruz,  and  so  had 
fired  off  their  guns  in  salute  of  welcome.  The  country 
was  miserable,  the  men  were  mutinous,  and  the  officers 
dissatisfied.  The  entire  establishment  consisted  of  but 
shelters  for  the  garrison,  and  a  half-finished  stockade 
fort  on  the  left  side  of  the  mouth  of  the  river. 

A  Spanish  officer  accompanied  Lescalette  on  his 
return,  the  half-finished  stockade  fort  firing  a  salute  as 
they  passed.  Chasteaumorant,  still  acting  the  role  of 
commander-in-chief,  received  the  Spanish  messenger, 
who  brought  the  regrets  of  his  commander  that  the 
French  fleet  could  not  be  allowed  to  enter  the  har- 
bour, as  his  establishment  was  a  new  and  feeble  one,  but 
offering  to  have  wood  and  water  conveyed  to  them  by 
his  men  and  boats.  As  for  refreshments,  he  was  in 
greater  lack  of  them  than  the  French,  being  entirely 
dependent  on  Vera  Cruz  for  them.  He  sent  some  pres- 
ent to  the  French  commander,  which  Chasteaumorant 
returned  with  a  demi-john  of  wine. 


1 8  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

During  their  officers  absence  the  Spanish  crew 
availed  themselves  of  the  opportunity  to  beg  of  the 
French  the  charity  of  some  biscuit,  as  they  were,  they 
said,  starving.  They  professed  themselves  anxious  to 
serve  the  French  king,  and  offered  to  desert  to  Chasteau- 
morant.  He  had  food  distributed  to  them,  but  warned 
them  if  they  deserted  he  should  be  forced  to  return  them 
to  the  Spanish  authorities.  He  notes  in  his  journal  that 
judging  by  the  way  the  Spanish  officers  ate  when  they 
dined  with  him,  the  story  of  their  lack  of  food  must  be 
correct. 

Their  first  pretext  having  failed,  Chasteaumorant,  in 
concert  with,  or  more  likely  at  the  instigation  of,  Iber- 
ville,  LOW  wrote  to  Don  Andres  de  la  Riola  that  not  con- 
sidering the  king's  ships  to  be  in  safety  where  they  were, 
he  should  proceed  the  next  morning  to  sound  the  en- 
trance to  the  harbour,  so  that  he  might  know  it,  in  case 
he  should  be  forced  to  seek  shelter  there  from  a  south 
wind.  This  was  in  fact  thoroughly  accomplished  at  day- 
light the  next  morning  by  Iberville,  Surgeres,  and  De 
Graff,  who  sounded  up  to  the  very  frigates  at  anchor,  be- 
fore a  note  from  the  Spanish  commander  arrived,  beg- 
ging them  to  retire  immediately,  sending  his  own  pilot 
to  remain  with  them  during  their  stay,  and  in  emergency, 
to  guide  them  into  a  place  of  safety,  —  any  place  on  the 
coast  was  free  to  them  except  Pensacola.  The  French 
had  their  anchors  raise'd  ready  to  make  the  entrance, 
but  they  concluded  instead,  with  reluctance,  to  relieve 
their  anxious  hosts  and  continue  their  voyage  westward. 

The  beauty  of  the  harbour,  which  was  pronounced 
superior  to  Brest,  the  abundant  forests  of  mast-timber,  — 
"enough,"  writes  Surgeres,  l'to  furnish  the  whole  of 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  ig 

France,"  —  and  the  weakness  and  timidity  of  the  Spanish 
garrison,  rendered  the  temptation  most  seductive ;  and 
the  French  commanders  looked  upon  their  decision  as  a 
most  heroic  piece  of  renunciation  in  favour  of  interna- 
tional good-will.  As  Chasteaumorant  remarks  regret- 
fully, he  could  have  driven  the  Spaniards  out  and 
secured  the  harbour  very  cheaply. 

At  the  instance  of  the  prudent  Iberville,  the  marquis 
wrote  once  again  to  Don  Andres,  reiterating  Lescalette's 
fiction  about  the  object  of  the  expedition.  As  for  the 
real  end  of  it,  much  additional  general  and  confirma- 
tive information  concerning  it  had  been  acquired  dur- 
ing the  hospitalities  extended  to  the  Spanish  officers 
and  the  captains  of  the  Spanish  frigates.  Don  Andres' 
pilot  especially,  whom  Chasteaumorant  kept  with,  him 
until  the  moment  of  sailing,  gave  instructions  about  the 
soundings,  islands,  and  banks  along  the  coast,  which 
proved  correct  and  valuable.  All  agreed  that  no  Eng- 
lish vessels  had  been  seen  anywhere  about  there. 
Whereupon,  for  the  second  time  during  the  voyage, 
Chasteaumorant  offered  to  relieve  Iberville  of  his  appa- 
rently unnecessary  escort.  The  latter,  however,  as  cour- 
teously declined  being  relieved,  insisting  that  there  might 
still  be  need  for  the  corvette.  According  to  his  instruc- 
tions from  the  Minister  of  Marine,  Chasteaumorant  had 
to  continue  with  Iberville  until  dismissed  in  due  form, 
—  a  condition  imposed  upon  the  minister  by  Iberville 
himself,  mindful  of  his  predecessor's,  the  unfortunate 
La  Salle's  experience  with  his  royal  escort. 

Stopping  of  nights  and  during  fogs,  it  took  the  squad- 
ron two  days  to  arrive  opposite  the  thin  strip  of  land 
which  half  encloses  Mobile  Bay  on  the  south. 


20  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

Here  they  dropped  anchor,  and,  with  their  usual 
methodical  alacrity,  set  about  taking  observations  and 
soundings ;  and  here  they  experienced  their  first 
bad  weather.  Shifting  gales,  torrents  of  rain,  terrific 
thunder  and  lightning,  and  violent  seas,  more  than 
made  good  the  evil  characterization  of  the  region  by 
the  Spaniards.  The  "  Francois  "  put  out  to  sea,  the 
frigates  withdrew  from  the  coast,  and  one  of  the  trans- 
ports stranded  (recovering  at  change  of  tide,  however). 
The  reconnoitring  open  boats  returned  from  the  channel 
with  such  unsatisfactory  and  contradictory  accounts  of 
the  depth  that  Iberville  determined  to  investigate  it  for 
himself.  Taking  with  him  his  young  brother,  he  was 
rowed  by  his  Canadians  to  the  point  of  the  encircling 
strip  of  land,  where  he  passed  the  night,  to  be  on 
the  spot  to  begin  his  task  with  the  day.  The  storm 
broke  over  them  here,  raging  with  great  violence. 
Daylight  brought  a  lull  which  permitted  them  to 
sound  and  mark  as  far  as  the  channel.  Again  the 
wind  arose  and  the  rain-floods  descended ;  the  thick 
mist  shut  off  from  them  the  sight  of  their  vessels.  The 
rowers  spent  themselves  in  vain  to  make  headway  over 
the  billows ;  they  were  forced  to  turn  about  and  run 
into  the  nearest  land,  which  they  reached  so  weak  and 
exhausted  from  their  efforts  that  they  could  barely 
make  a  fire  to  dry  themselves.  Weatherbound  here  for 
three  days,  they  had  ample  leisure  to  examine  the  narrow 
limits  of  their  refuge,  —  a  small  island  rising  between 
the  Gulf  and  the  bay,  about  twelve  miles  long  and  one 
and  a  half  broad  at  its  widest.  At  the  southwestern 
end  a  hideous  heap  of  skulls  and  bones  bore  ghastly 
.witness  to  some  barbarity  of  Indian  warfare,  and  not  of 


SI  EUR  DE  B1ENVILLE.  21 

ancient  date,  as  testified  by  the  comparative  preservation 
of  the  bones  and  freshness  of  the  domestic  utensils 
scattered  around.  The  brothers  named  the  place,  from 
this  event,  Massacre  Island.  During  their  enforced 
sojourn  here,  the  Canadians  hunted,  killing  ducks,  bus- 
tards, and  wild  cats.  Iberville,  making  his  way  over 
to  the  mainland,  about  ten  miles  off,  followed  the 
shore-line  some  distance  ;  when,  landing,  he  climbed  to 
the  top  of  a  white-oak-tree  and  studied  what  his  eye 
could  reach  of  the  scene  around  him,  —  a  rugged  forest- 
line,  running  beyond  him  still  for  ten  or  twelve  miles 
north,  where  it  seemed  to  form  a  cape  turning  west- 
ward ;  east  of  which,  from  the  yellowish  colour  of  the 
waters,  he  judged  a  river  discharged  itself  into  the  bay ; 
oak,  elm,  birch,  pine,  walnut,  chestnut,  ash,  and  other 
trees  unknown  to  him,  rose  in  the  forest  around  him. 
The  land  was  high  ;  above  inundation  :  the  soil  bore 
quantities  of  vines  and  flowers,  fragrant  violets,  novel 
yellow  blossoms,  and  wild  peas  like  those  in  St.  Do- 
mingo. Proceeding  still  on  foot,  signs  of  Indian 
habitations  presented  themselves,  —  cabins,  pieces  of 
cooking  utensils,  remnants  and  vestiges  of  food  not 
a  week  old.  It  was  presumably  the  encampment  of 
some  tribe  on  a  seasonal  visit  to  the  Gulf  shore  for 
fish. 

Before  embarking  for  his  island  again,  Iberville  fired 
off  his  gun  several  times,  and  cut  into  the  bark  of  a 
tree  the  fact  and  meaning  of  his  presence  there,  —  that 
he  had  come  thither  in  three  ships,  fetching  with  him  a 
calumet  of  peace. 

Fine  weather  at  last  declared  itself.  The  sounding 
of  the  channel  was  completed,  and  the  retarded  boats 


22  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

returned  to  the  ships,  loaded  with  wood  and  with  grass 
for  the  live-stock.  At  midday,  under  a  light  north  wind, 
in  the  serene,  exhilarating  weather  that  such  a  wind 
brings  to  this  region  after  a  storm,  the  little  fleet  set  sail 
again  for  the  next  station  marked  on  the  map,  —  which 
was  no  less  than  the  Mississippi  itself. 

Mobile  Point  and  Massacre  Island  diminished  and 
disappeared  behind  them ;  before  them,  in  the  north- 
west and  north-northwest,  two  other  islands  came  into 
view,  —  mere  specks  of  white  sand,  supporting  a  few 
trees,  in  the  dancing,  twinkling  blue  waters.  Suddenly 
the  fair  wind  changed  to  a  shifting  south,  —  the  storm- 
wind  of  the  Gulf.  The  wish  to  find  a  harbour  became 
an  anxiety,  a  pressing  necessity ;  glasses  were  turned 
from  the  heavens  to  the  Gulf  north  and  west  for  the 
coast-line  which  should  appear,  but  did  not. 

Bienville  and  Lescalette  were  sent  to  look  for  an 
anchorage  around  the  western  end  of  the  island  to  the 
north  of  them,  —  marked  on  the  early  maps  He  a 
Bienville,  now  from  a  sailor's  losing  his  horn  there  in 
an  after  expedition,  Horn  Island,  —  but  they  were 
picked  up  the  next  day,  tacking  to  get  to  windward  of 
the  island,  after  a  fruitless  search. 

Other  islands  rose  into  view  as  they  continued  to 
sail  westward,  one  in  the  west,  and  one  in  the  south,  — 
a  mere  sandy  surface,  without  a  tree.  To  get  shelter 
from  the  wind,  the  ships  anchored  to  the  north  of  this 
last.  It  was  named  Chandeleur,  from  the  recent  feast 
of  Candlemas. 

Surgeres,  with  his  ensign,  Sauvole,  and  Bienville  were 
sent  in  a  Biscayen  to  seek  for  a  pass  around  the  little 
island  to  the  north,  —  now  Ship  Island  ;  then  named  or 


SIEUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  2$ 

marked  on  the  early  maps  lie  a  Surgeres,  or  lie  Lesca- 
lette.  The  felucca  was  also  sent  to  reconnoitre  around 
the  dot  of  an  islet  to  the  west  of  it.  It  returned,  bring- 
ing reports  only  of  the  quantities  of  curious  little  animals, 
resembling  cats,  found  upon  it.  Of  course  they  named 
it  Cat  Island ;  but  the  cats  were  in  reality  racoons. 

The  weather,  despite  apprehensions,  remained  fine  ; 
the  ships  rode  at  anchor  all  day,  the  men  making 
astonishing  catches  of  fish,  and  watching  the  innumer- 
able flocks  of  wild  duck  and  geese  passing  over- 
head. 

At  eight  o'clock  at  night  was  heard  the  welcome 
voice  of  Bienville  in  his  Biscayen,  going  from  ship  to 
ship,  to  communicate  the  good  tidings  that  the  sought- 
for  anchorage  had  been  found. 

In  the  first  light  of  the  slow  dawning  February  morn- 
ing the  "  Badine  ''  flew  the  signal ;  and  had  there  been 
any  one  there  to  witness  it,  —  some  wonder-stricken 
aboriginal,  standing  on  the  distant  mainland  and  look- 
ing south,  as,  ray  by  ray,  the  sun  drove  the  mist  from 
the  horizon,  —  white  sails  might  have  been  seen  to 
rise  from  the  green,  gray  expanse,  to  widen,  advance, 
converge,  and  file  through  the  pretty  opening  between 
the  two  fragile,  floating-looking  islands  ;  and  just  where 
the  eye  is  accustomed  now  to  see  the  clustering  of 
masts  around  the  Government  station,  Iberville's  fleet 
might  have  been  seen  to  hover,  drop  anchor,  and  furl 
sail,  —  at  last  as  safe  as  though  in  the  envied  Pensacola 
harbour. 


24  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER   III. 

IT  was  a  harbour  in  which  the  French  officers  exult- 
ingly  proclaimed  they  could  find  a  shelter  from  every 
wind  that  blew. 

The  live-stock  was  landed,1  tents  were  erected,  and 
the  rest  of  the  long-boats  taken  out  of  frame  and  set  up. 
The  crews  dispersed  themselves  enthusiastically  over 
their  glad  possession,  limited  as  it  was  in  area  ;  and  their 
exuberant  indulgence  in  fish  and  bathing  failed  not  to 
produce  a  prompt  response  in  the  shape  of  a  mild  epi- 
demic. It  was,  in  truth,  an  arid  resting-place  enough,  — 
a  mere  strip  of  shifting  white  sand  piled  according  to 
the  fantasy  of  the  last  gale  ;  with  a  sparse  wood  at  one 
extremity,  and  only  grass  enough  to  serve  as  ambush  for 
that  pestiferous  torment  of  the  feet,  the  needle-pointed 
burrs  called  "  rocachats."  Over  one  beach  dashed  the 
green,  transparent  billows  from  the  Gulf,  flashing  their 
captive  fish  like  spangles  in  the  sunlight.  Along  the  other, 
—  the  island  is  but  two  beaches,  seamed  together  with  a 
ridge  of  sand,  —  along  the  other,  the  blue  waters  of  the 
Sound  revealed  their  calm,  transparent  depths  of  beauty, 
with  their  strange  poetic  growths  of  shell  and  weed,  and 

1  The  swine  must  have  been  put  upon  Cat  Island  ;  for  memo- 
rials a  few  years  later  relate  that  the  hogs  upon  Cat  Island  had 
destroyed  all  the  "  cats,"  and  had  become  so  numerous  that  they 
preyed  upon  each  other. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  2$ 

clusters  of  iris-hued  anemones,  their  browsing,  lurking, 
playing  silver-fish,  and  brilliant  darting  crabs. 

But  despite  its  relief  to  Iberville,  its  harbourage  bless- 
ing, its  glorious  phantasms  of  cloud  and  sea  colouring, 
the  little  island  has  furnished  but  joyless  scenes  to  his- 
tory. Sun-baked,  wind-swept,  storm-driven,  with  a  glare 
that  sears  the  human  eye  to  certain  blindness,  the  In- 
dians shunned  it,  the  French  learned  to  loathe  it ;  once 
a  place  of  most  cruel  imprisonment  to  thousands  of  un- 
fortunate captives,  from  which  hearts  turn  with  horror, 
it  is  now  serving  as  a  national  harbour,  and  a  post  of 
most  wearisome  residence  to  the  Federal  officials. 

In  sight  of  the  mainland,  with  his  squadron  in  secu- 
rity, and  the  Mississippi,  according  to  his  calculations, 
within  reach  of  his  open  boats,  and  finally  —  and  most 
potent  reason  —  freed  from  all  apprehensions  of  the  Eng- 
lish, Iberville  felt  that  he  might  safely  dismiss  Chasteau- 
morant.  The  marquis,  dining  with  him  on  the  "  Badine," 
was  therefore  courteously  informed  that  whenever  it  was 
his  pleasure  to  return  to  St.  Domingo,  he  was  at  liberty 
to  do  so.  The  actual  departure  of  the  "  Francois,"  how- 
ever, did  not  take  place  for  several  days,  during  which 
the  hospitalities  and  social  amenities  of  the  two  com- 
manders continue  to  throw  a  pleasant  and  genial  glow 
over  their  official  relations. 

Moving  figures  of  men  could  be  made  out  on  the  dis- 
tant shore,  and  at  night  the  light  of  camp-fires  shone  on 
what  appeared  to  be  the  end  of  an  island  lying  close  to 
land.  Iberville  lost  no  time  in  making  his  investigation, 
determined  to  make  friends  with  the  Indians,  who,  as 
he  had  understood  at  Pensacola,  entertained  a  horror  of 
the  Spaniards.  He  took  Father  Anasthase  Dcuay,  a 


26  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

former  companion  of  La  Salle,  with  him  in  his  Biscayen. 
Bienville  and  two  Canadians  followed  in  canoes.  It  was 
a  distance  of  about  twenty  miles  to  the  land.  Disem- 
barking, Iberville  and  the  priest  found  the  fresh  trail  of 
the  Indians  seen  from  the  ships.  They  pursued  it. 
Bienville  and  the  Canadians  paddled  along  close  to  the 
shore  in  the  shallow  water ;  the  Biscayen  followed  in 
the  distance.  Night  overtook  them  after  ten  miles,  and 
they  camped  where  they  were.  In  the  early  morning 
they  espied  the  lurking  forms  of  Indians  watching  them 
from  afar.  Leaving  behind  at  their  camp  some  hatchets, 
knives,  beads,  and  vermilion  as  a  bait,  and  also  as  tes- 
timonials of  his  good-will,  Iberville  and  his  party  pursued 
the  trail  they  were  on.  It  led  them,  after  a  few  miles, 
near  enough  to  the  little  island  for  them  to  distinguish 
canoes  filled  with  Indians  crossing  between  it  and  the 
mainland  (Deer  Island,  named  for  the  game  found  on 
it,  and  Biloxi).  Bienville  in  his  canoe  immediately 
started  towards  them.  The  Indians,  taking  —  Iberville 
writes  —  the  Frenchmen  for  Spaniards,  fled  in  terror  ; 
leaping  to  the  land,  running  into  the  foiest,  abandoning 
their  canoes  and  all  that  they  contained.  The  Cana- 
dians tried  in  vain  to  head  them  off  or  arrest  them  by 
their  friendly  cries.  They  came  upon  one  poor  crea- 
ture unable  to  escape,  —  an  old  man  lame  from  a  putre- 
fying wound  in  the  leg.  The  Canadians  made  bigns  to 
him  of  their  friendly  intentions.  He  responded  with 
signs  also  that  he  was  suffering  cold  and  great  pain,  and 
petitioned  to  be  carried  ashore.  This  his  captors  will- 
ingly did,  making  besides  a  fire  for  him,  wrapping  him 
in  a  coverlet,  and  building  a  shelter  over  him.  They 
also  gave  him  food  and  tobacco-,  drew  his  canoe  upon 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  2  7 

the  beach  in  sight,  placed  his  sacks  of  corn  round  him, 
and  withdrew,  making  him  understand  that  they  were 
going  to  pass  the  night  at  some  distance  from  him. 

In  the  mean  time  Bienville,  with  two  Canadians,  had 
been  sent  into  the  forest  in  chase  of  the  fugitives.  They 
returned  with  an  old  woman  found  hiding.  She  was  in 
great  terror,  says  Surgeres,  thinking  that  her  last  hour 
had  come.  But  her  trepidation  was  allayed  by  friendly 
signs  and  a  present  of  enough  tobacco  for  herself  and 
her  whole  family.  She  was  conducted  to  the  old  man, 
and  made  to  see  the  evidences  of  the  good  will  and 
generosity  shown  him  by  the  strangers,  who  still  further 
proved  their  kindness  by  leaving  the  two  old  creatures 
by  themselves  together. 

As  Iberville  anticipated,  the  woman  slipped  away 
during  the  night,  carrying  her  present  and  the  recital  of 
her  experiences  to  her  people.  As  for  the  poor  old 
man,  he  had  fared  hardly ;  the  grass  around  him  had 
caught  on  fire,  and  he  had  with  difficulty  saved  himself 
from  being  burned  alive.  The  Canadians  extinguished 
the  flames  and  laid  him  on  a  bearskin,  where  he  expired 
a  half  hour  afterwards. 

The  results  of  the  old  woman's  good  offices  were  soon 
seen,  or  rather  heard.  The  unmistakable  sounds  of 
Indian  vocalization  were  heard  approaching  through 
the  woods.  But  timidity,  apparently,  or  distrust  took 
possession  of  the  singers,  who  would  not  ventuie  from 
behind  the  trees.  The  eager  Frenchmen  waited  im- 
patiently and  in  vain  for  the  embassy  and  finally  returned 
to  their  camp.  Some  Canadians,  hunting  in  the  woods, 
later  met  the  still  hesitating  Indians,  and  reassured  them 
into  resuming  their  procession  and  calumet  chant. 


28.  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

Iberville  received  them  with  their  own  expressive  greet- 
ing of  endearment,  —  a  gentle  rubbing  of  the  stomach,  — 
distributed  presents  among  them,  conducted  them  to 
their  abandoned  canoes  of  the  day  before,  showed  them 
their  corn  intact,  and  finally  feasted  them  on  sagamity. 
The  good  cheer  enticed  other  laggards  and  spies  from 
the  woods,  and  good  fellowship  was  not  long  in  estab- 
lishing itself.  Two  old  women  were  immediately  put 
to  pounding  corn  for  the  return  feast,  given  promptly 
by  the  Indians.  All  the  whites  and  reds  smoked  to- 
gether afterwards,  the  Indians  calling  their  guests  al- 
lies, and  teaching  them  words  of  their  dialect.  Night 
separated  them  ;  each  lace  going  to  its  own  encamp- 
ment, several  miles  apart.  The  next  morning,  however, 
when,  in  pursuance  of  their  good  fellowship,  the  Cana- 
dians sought  the  camp  of  their  friends,  struggling  pain- 
fully through  swamp  and  thicket  to  get  there,  they  found 
but  ten  clouted  warriors,  warned  by  the  signal  shot  of 
the  Canadian  scout,  waiting  for  them,  arms  in  hand. 
The  rest  of  the  tribe  had  all  departed,  prudently  taking 
their  canoes  and  corn  with  them. 

Iberville  complains  in  his  journal  that  notwithstanding 
he  never  smoked,  he  had  to  smoke  all  over  again  with 
them.  More  presents  were  distributed  among  them,  and 
Iberville  was  able  to  persuade  three  of  them  to  accom- 
pany him  to  his  ship,  leaving  Bienville  and  two  Canadians 
behind  as  hostages.  The  weather  was  very  beautiful,  and 
a  quick  sail  was  made  to  the  ships  at  anchor.  The  chief, 
standing  in  the  Biscayen.  intoned  his  chant  of  peace  as 
they  approached.  On  board,  the  savages  were  regaled 
with  all  that  their  experienced  hosts  could  suggest  for 
their  bcguilement.  Presents  were  made  them,  the  ships 


SIEUK  DE  BIENVILLE.  29 

were  put  through  their  manoeuvres,  cannon  were  fired 
off,  and  spy-glasses  held  to  their  eyes,  —  the  last  tlie 
strangest  wonder  of  all  to  them  ;  they  could  see  so  far 
off  with  one  eye,  and  so  near  with  the  other  at  the  same 
time  !  French  brandy,  burning  in  their  stomachs  so 
long  after  it  was  swallowed,  also  greatly  astonished  them. 
Chasteaumorant  writes  that  they  were  well-made,  robust 
men ;  that  be  made  them  several  questions  by  signs, 
but  that  they  answered,  like  veritable  hogs,  with  grunts. 
They  belonged  to  the  Annochy  and  Moctoby  tribes. 
They  described  their  village,  and  the  neighbouring  vil- 
lage of  Chozetta,  as  being  not  more  than  three  days' 
journey  from  the  ships,  on  the  banks  of  the  Pascagoula 
River,  which  they  assured  Iberville  was  four  fathoms 
deep,  begging  him  to  fetch  his  ships  into  it. 

Iberville  could  find  out  from  them  nothing  about  the 
Mississippi.  Of  the  Indian  tribes  mentioned  in  the 
Tonty.and  Hennepin  Relations  of  La  Salle's  voyage  down 
the  Mississippi,  he  could  get  no  trace,  with  the  exception 
of  the  Nipissas,  whom  he  identified  with  the  Quinipissas, 
—  located,  however,  by  the  Relations  twenty-five  miles 
up  the  river,  while  these  Indians  placed  them  only  nine 
miles  away. 

Iberville  returned  with  his  savages  to  the  mainland, 
where  he  found  Bienville  feasting,  smoking,  and  other- 
wise making  himself  agreeable  to  some  newly  arrived 
guests.  These  were,  indeed,  of  importance.  They  were 
a  chief  and  warriors  of  the  Mongoulachas  and  Baya- 
goulas  tribes,  who  lived  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi 
itself.  On  a  hunting  expedition  they  had  heard  the 
sound  of  the  cannon,  and  had  come  to  see  the  cause 
of  it.  They  lavished  compliments  and  caresses  on  the 


3O  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

young  Bienville,  asking  him  if  he  had  come  there  in  the 
bark  canoe  they  saw,  and  if  he  belonged  to  the  people 
up  above  the  Mississippi,  which  they  called  the  Malban- 
chia.  The  chief  advanced  to  meet  Iberville,  with  all  the 
dignity  and  ceremony  of  his  rank  and  people,  passing  his 
hand  over  the  commander's  stomach  and  raising  his  eyes 
to  heaven,  which  demonstrations,  Iberville  writes,  were 
punctiliously  returned.  When  similar  protestations  and 
attestations  had  been  indulged  in  by  all>  they  repaired  to 
Bienville's  tent.  Here  Iberville  presented  his  calumet 
to  them  to  smoke,  —  a  most  imposing  pipe,  made  of  iron 
in  the  shape  of  a  ship,  decorated  with  beads  and  flying  the 
fleur  de  lys ;  giving  them  also  hatchets,  knives,  and  other 
presents,  that,  as  he  told  them,  they  and  the'  French 
henceforth  should  be  but  one  nation.  A  festal  dish  of 
sagamity,  confected  with  prunes,  was  served,  and  brandy, 
which  the  Indians  enjoyed  burning  rather  than  drinking. 

At  night  the  Indians  gave  their  feast,  and  smoked 
their  calumet,  and  made  their  presents  of  skins  of  the 
musk-rat,  which,  according  to  them,  allied  the  French 
with  the  four  nations  west  of  the  Mississippi,  —  the 
Mongoulacha,  Ouacha,  Tontymacha,  and  Yagnes- 
chito  ;  and  with  the  Biloxi,  Moctoby,  Houma,  Pasca- 
goula,  Techloel,  and  Amilco,  on  the  east  of  it.  The 
feasting,  singing,  and  dancing  —  Canadians  no  whit 
behind  the  Indians  in  the  two  latter  —  lasted  until 
midnight. 

These  Indians  also  gave  Iberville  to  understand  that 
they  hated  the  Spaniards.  They  were  at  that  time  at 
war  with  the  Quinipissas,  who  they  knew  had  fought 
with  La  Salle.  Among  their  allies,  the  Houmas  and  the 
Tangipahoas  were  both  named  in  the  Relations  of  La 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  31 

Salle's  exploration  of  the  Mississippi.  Feeling  the  end 
of  a  guiding  thread,  indeed,  in  his  hand,  Iberville  drew 
some  maps  to  learn  where  that  fork  of  the  river  was, 
through  which  the  Relations  averred  the  explorers  had 
travelled  to  the  Sound.  The  Indians  seemed  to  indicate 
this  to  be  the  Pascagoula  River;  but  reflection  con- 
vinced Iberville  that  what  they  meant  was  that  it  was 
through  that  river  they  themselves  reached  streams  that 
communicated  with  the  Mississippi. 

Iberville  proposed  going  directly  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Pascagoula  and  sounding  it,  Bienville  and  three  Cana- 
dians, with  their  canoes,  remaining  with  the  Indians. 

The  chief,  however,  wished  to  continue  his  hunt  after 
buffalo  and  wild  turkey ;  but  he  promised  to  return  to 
the  spot  in  four  nights  to  meet  the  French,  when  he 
would  share  his  game  with  them,  and  they  would  all 
have  a  feast  and  proceed  together  to  the  Mississippi. 
He  would  light  a  fire  on  the  shore  to  signal  his  return ; 
Iberville  was  to  answer  with  four  cannon  shot  from  his 
ship.  Upon  this  they  parted,  the  French  turning  their 
sloops  and  canoes  in  the  direction  of  Pascagoula  River. 
Contrary  winds,  however,  prevented  their  making  it. 
Judging  from  its  size  and  appearance  that  it  could  not 
possibly  have  the  depth  of  water  described,  at  its  mouth, 
Iberville,  without  further  waste  of  time,  put  back,  hoping 
to  catch  the  Indians  before  they  had  started  on  their 
hunt,  and  persuade  them  to  guide  him  at  once  to  their 
branch  of  the  Mississippi.  But  the  Indians  had  de- 
parted, and  their  camp  was  deserted.  Nothing  remained 
for  Iberville  but  to  camp  for  the  night  where  he  was,  and 
return  the  next  morning  to  his  ships  and  await  the  re- 
turn of  his  guides.  Twelve  hours  later,  —  a  day  too  soon 


32  JEAN  HAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

for  the  appointment,  —  smoke  was  descried  at  the  point 
of  rendezvous.  The  four  cannon  shots  were  fired,  and 
preparations  immediately  begun  to  fit  the  Biscayens  with 
men,  food,  and  ammunition  for  the  exploration  of  the 
river.  Iberville,  Bienville,  Surgeres,  Lescalette,  and  all 
the  Canadians  of  the  "  Badine  "  and  "  Marin  "  were  of 
the  party.  Arrived  at  the  place  of  meeting,  not  an  Indian 
was  to  be  seen,  and  the  woods,  having  caught  fire  from 
the  beacon,  were  all  in  flames.  A  stormy  north  wind 
the  next  day  made  navigation  impossible.  When  it 
subsided,  Bienville  was  sent  in  his  canoe  to  search  for 
news  of  the  absentees.  He  returned  with  two  men  and 
two  women, — one  of  the  men  an  Annochy  friend.  He 
told  Iberville  that  the  Bayougoulas  had  gone  home. 
They  had  stayed  on  their  hunt  only  two  nights  after  part- 
ing from  the  French.  They  had  kindled  the  fires  to 
show  that  they  were  leaving,  being  out  of  provisions,  and 
with  the  wind  favourable  for  reaching  the  Malbanchia. 
In  other  words,  they  had  given  him  the  slip.  Sending 
a  party  to  sound  and  explore  the  Pascagoula,  Iberville 
returned  to  Ship  Island,  without  a  vestige  left  of  any 
hope  he  may  have  founded  on  the  Indians. 

Getting  into  the  Mississippi  by  one  of  its  outlets,  fol- 
lowing it  down  to  its  mouth,  fixing  the  exact  locality  of 
it,  and  then  rejoining  his  vessels  in  the  Gulf,  would  have 
been  to  Iberville  a  task  of  most  easy  and  expeditious 
accomplishment.  Thrown  now  upon  his  own  resources, 
he  pushed  forward,  with  energies  stimulated  by  his  recent 
baffling,  to  his  original  and  more  difficult  plan. 

In  less  than  twenty-four  hours  the  new  expedition  was 
under  way.  The  two  barges,  armed  each  with  a  swivel- 
gun,  and  with  a  canoe  in  tow,  were  equipped,  with  fifty 


S1EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  $$ 

Canadians,  sailors,  and  filibusters,  twenty-five  days'  provi- 
sions, and  arms  and  ammunition  not  only  for  the  voyage, 
but  for  the  projected  establishment  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river,  when  found.  Iberville  took  Bienville  with  him  in 
one  barge.  Sauvole,  the  ensign  of  the  "  Marin,"  com- 
manded the  other  barge,  having  with  him  Anasthase 
Douay,  the  priest  who,  as  the  companion  of  La  Salle 
and  a  former  explorer  of  the  river,  was  expected  to 
establish  its  identity. 

Surgeres  remained  in  command  of  the  fleet  at  Ship 
Island,  with  permission,  as  he  was  short  of  provisions, 
to  return  to  France  in  the  "  Marin,"  in  six  weeks,  if 
Iberville  had  not  returned. 

It  was  the  morning  of  JFriday,  the  2yth  of  February, 
they  set  out.  The  weather  was  unfavourable,  the  wind 
blowing  from  the  southeast,  with  rain  and  fog.  They 
sailed  for  some  islands  that  appeared  in  the  south. 
Running  six  leagues,  the  length  of  one  of  them,  a  low, 
flat,  rush-covered  surface,  called  by  Iberville  Sable,  or 
Sand  Island,  they  entered  that  terraqueous  maze  of  the 
Delta  through  which  the  mind  follows  their  adventures 
with  admiring  confusion.  Islands,  islets,  sand-bars, 
reefs,  points,  bays,  shallows,  breakers,  gravel-banks, 
and  mud-heaps  repeat  themselves  in  Iberville's  diary 
with  a  regularity  which,  however,  cannot  be  called 
monotonous. 

Despite  the  wind,  the  water  presented  a  calm,  un- 
ruffled surface,  protected  as  it  was  by  a  continuous 
screen  of  islands  rising  in  clusters,  budding  in  long 
sprays,  as  it  were,  from  the  shallow  bottoms,  reaching 
from  northeast  to  southwest. 

Beyond,  far  out  in  the  open,  the  eye  could  touch  the 
3 


34  JEAN  BAPT1STE   LE  MOYNE, 

Chandeleurs ;  and  beyond  them,  from  out  the  invisible, 
the  ear  could  gather  the  roar  of  breakers  over  still  other 
islands. 

The  mainland  lay  to  their  right,  —  a  shelving  strip  of 
woodless  sand,  scooped,  notched,  and  ragged,  reaching 
out  into  the  water.  In  order  to  pass  no  river  it  might 
hold,  the  barges  kept  -it  well  in  sight  ;  dragging  at  times 
laboriously  over  the  shoaling  bottom.  They  passed 
their  night  on  the  point  of  an  island,  inundated  at  high 
tide,  like  the  rest. 

The  next  morning,  a  fog,  through  which  the.y  could  not 
see,  hid  everything  from  them.  The  day  was  consumed, 
as  one  narrative  says,  in  fending  off  the  little  islands  that 
beset  their  way  wherever  they  turned.  They  made  a 
short  halt  for  rest  on  ground  so  fragile  that  it  trembled  if 
a  heavy  object  was  dropped  upon  it ;  they  tried  the 
oysters  here,  but  found  them  not  so  good  as  those  in 
Europe.  In  the  afternoon,  while  they  were  pitching 
their  camp  for  the  night,  a  dreadful  storm  broke  over 
them,  with  deafening  thunder-claps  and  blinding  flashes 
of  lightning,  and  a  deluge  of  rain  that  lasted  all  night 
and  prevented  a  start  in  the  morning.  Suddenly  the 
wind  jumped  to  the  northeast,  and  bore  down  upon 
them  with  freezing  keenness.  They  had  no  wood  ;  they 
dug  in  vain  in  the  sodden  sand  for  drinking  water.  The 
water  rose  all  around  them,  covering  the  island  and 
their  camp  a  half  foot  deep.  They  cut  twigs  and  rushes, 
and  raised  a  standing  place,  where,  during  the  drenching 
downpour,  they  hung  over  a  smouldering  fire.  And  so 
their  Sunday  passed. 

On  Monday  they  were  able  to  make  a  start.  The 
wind  blew  stiffly  from  the  north.  Running  before  it, 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  35 

they  pushed  alternately  to  the  east  and  west,  seeking 
some  issue  out  of  the  maze  that  held  them.  Struggling 
around  a  point,  they  came  in  sight  of  the  mainland 
again,  still  extending  south-southeast  before  them  ;  and 
still  they  followed  it. 

The  unbridled  wind  had  now  free  range  at  them. 
The  raging  seas  broke  over  and  over  their  open  boats, 
badly  weighted  with  the  canoes  which  they  had  been 
forced  to  take  aboard.  They  stretched  their  tarred  can- 
vases, and  held  them  down  by  main  strength.  At  one 
moment  they  were  running  with  the  wind  into  land, 
fearing  in  the  storm  to  pass  the  Mississippi  by.  At 
another,  they  were  fighting  with  the  wind  to  keep  off  the 
land  against  which  it  and  the  sea  were  driving  them  ; 
every  gust  threatening  to  beach  them,  every  billow  to 
swamp  them.  For  three  hours  they  battled  for  their 
lives  off  a  cape  whose  jutting  rocky  points  seemed  to 
cut  off  all  hopes  of  escape.  Darkness  was  coming  on. 
The  irresistible  fury  of  the  gale  showed  no  sign  of 
abatement.  There  seemed  no  choice  but  that  of  per- 
ishing at  sea,  or  perishing  on  shore  during  the  night. 
Iberville  seized  the  one  mitigation  of  waning  daylight 
for  himself  and  his  men.  Sauvole  saw  him  put  his 
barge  about,  with  the  wind  full  astern,  and  drive  her 
on  the  rocks.  He  followed,  and  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi  was  discovered  ! 


36  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  impregnable  cape  separated  before  them  into 
little  hillocks.  The  threatening  rocks  that  seemed  to 
have  risen  from  the  deep  to  aid  the  fury  of  a  merciless 
gale,  revealed  themselves  to  be  the  simulations  they 
were,  —  weird,  jagged,  fantastic,  the  outstretching  limbs 
and  branches  of  massed  heaps  of  driftwood,  cemented 
by  slime  and  sediment,  and  hardened  by  the  elements ; 
the  huge  forest  wreckage  which  the  serried  currents  of 
the  mighty  stream  had  borne  down  and  tossed  there, 
to  picket  its  encroachments  upon  the  Gulf;  the  far- 
famed,  well-named  Palissadoes,  which  had  hitherto  bar- 
ricaded entrance  from  the  sea.  A  turbid  volume  of 
whitish  waters  charged  through  the  openings,  holding 
its  way,  unmixed,  unmixing,  far  out  through  the  clear 
green  waters  of  the  Gulf.  The  Frenchmen  tasted  it,  —  it 
was  fresh,  "  and  great  consolation  it  gave  them,"  Iber- 
ville  says,  "  in  the  consternation  they  were  in."  The 
words  of  the  great  La  Salle  came  back  to  him,  —  that  he 
would  recognize  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  by  their 
being  whitish  and  thickish,  and  by  their  not  mixing  with 
the  waters  of  the  Gulf. 

Advancing  into  one  of  the  three  openings  that  offered, 
the  boats  were  almost  wrecked  again  in  the  surf  which 
crested  over  a  sand-bar,  sighted  too  late.  The  stream  be- 
came thicker  and  whiter,  and  the  current  so  swift  that  even 


SIEUJ?  DK  BIENVILLE.  37 

with  the  wind  now  in  their  favour,  the  sails  could  ma"ke 
poor  headway.  The  sea  tossed  and  foamed  outside 
the  two  low  smooth  tongues  of  land-,  not  a  musket-shot 
from  edge  to  edge,  which  banked  the  river  from  it ;  not 
a  tree,  only  grasses  and  rushes,  the  tenuous  first  growth 
of  a  recent  soil,  falling  in  heavy  fringes  over  into  the  cur- 
rent, which  stretched  and  pulled  them  along  in  its  course. 
Then,  by  degrees,  firmer  ground  and  heavier  growth. 
When  the  boats  landed  for  a  camp,  the  eye  could  not 
penetrate,  nor  the  foot  separate,  the  thick  growths  that 
confronted  them.  A  space  was  cleared,  fires  were 
lighted,  the  frugal  supper  of  porridge  was  cooked  and 
eaten,  and  watches  were  set  for  the  night;  Canadians 
and  filibusters  alternating  with  the  sailors. 

His  day's  work  over,  the  hardy  leader  gives  a  sigh  of 
satisfaction.  "  We  feel,  stretched  upon  these  rushes,  shel- 
tered from  the  bad  weather,  all  the  pleasure  there  is  in 
seeing  one's  self  safe  from  an  evident  peril,"  exulting  with 
robust  virility  :  "  C'est  un  mestier  bien  gaillard  de  des- 
couvrir  les  costes  de  la  mer  avec  des  chaloupes  qui  ne 
sont  ny  assez  grandes  pour  tenir  la  mer  soulz  voiles,  ny 
a  1'ancre,  et  trop  grandes  pour  donner  a  une  coste  plate, 
ou  elles  eschouent  et  touchent  a  demylieue  au  large." 
"  It  is  gallant  enough  work  discovering  the  shores  of 
the  sea  in  barges  not  large  enough  to  keep  to  sea  with 
either  sail  or  anchor,  and  too  large  to  land  on  a  flat 
coast,  where  they  strand  and  touch  a  half  league  out." 

The  next  morning  it  was  Mardi-Gras  morning  :  they 
celebrated  mass,  chanted  the  Te  Deum,  and  for  the 
third  time  a  cross  was  raised  1  in  that  chaos  of  strug- 

1  The  first  time  by  La  Salle,  when  he  explored  the  river  to  its 
mouth ;  the  second  time  by  Tonty,  who  journeyed  to  meet  his 


38  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

gling  land  and  water.  The  wind  and  rough  water  pre- 
vented soundings  or  explorations,  which  were  deferred 
until  the  return  trip,  and  perhaps  a  happier  chance  of 
weather.  After  breakfasting  "  very  succinctly,"  the  Re- 
lation says,  —  for  either  through  prudential  motives  of 
economy,  or  from  loss  of  provisions  during  the  storm, 
Iberville  had  shortened  the  rations,  —  they  took  to  their 
boats  again,  and  steered  up  the  river. 

It  spread  out  before  them  into  a  broad  expanse,  from 
which  two  other  issues,  in  the  southeast  and  southwest, 
branched  out  towards  the  Gulf.  Crossing  the  exposed 
space,  a  squall  struck  them,  which  dismasted  one  of 
the  barges.  It  was  forced  to  go  into  shore  for  repairs, 
at  a  spot  where  the  men  found  quantities  of  almost  ripe 
blackberries. 

Above  these  branches,  or  passes,  the  river  began  to 
converge  again,  and  the  banks  gradually  to  change  their 
character.  Sedges  and  rushes  passed  into  cane  and 
willows,  which  increased  in  height  and  sturdiness  until 
they  filled  forests.  Ducks,  sarcelles,  and  bustards  started 
from  cover  before  them.  They  saw  a  stag  wolf  running 
along  the  bank,  and  an  opossum,  and  in  the  forests  the 
Canadian  hunters  discovered  abundant  tracks  of  deer, 
goats,  and  wild  beeves. 

Twelve  leagues  from  its  mouth,  the  river  made  a  bend 
to  the  west.  Here  they  stopped  for  the  night.  A  little 
bayou  ran  near  by  ;  they  named  it  Mardi-C.ras.  for  the 

old  commander  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  when  the  latter  met 
the  tragic  end  of  his  hopes  in  Matagorda  Bay.  Tonty  found  the 
original  cross  prone,  half  buried  in  sediment  He  erected  it 
higher  up  the  liver,  on  firmer  soil,  as  he  supposed.  Jberville 
found  no  traces  of  it. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  39 

day.  The  cannon  were  fired  off,  for  the  intelligence  of 
any  Indians  within  hearing.  Iberville  climbed  to  the 
top  of  a  tree  to  spy  out  the  country  about  him.  Noth- 
ing but  willows,  canebrakes,  and  thickets  were  to  be  seen, 
over  a  flat  land,  that  overflowed  four  feet  deep  in  high 
water. 

If  this  was  the  Mississippi,  according  to  the  journals 
of  the  La  Salle  party  given  him  for  his  guidance,  Iber- 
ville should  find,  forty  leagues  up  the  river,  on  the  left 
bank,  the  deserted  village  of  the  Tangipahoas,  the  cabins 
of  which,  in  La  Salle's  time,  were  filled  with  corpses. 
Two  leagues  above  the  Tangipahoas  should  be  found 
the  Quinipissas ;  and  forty  leagues  above  these,  a 
division  or  fork  in  the  river,  La  Fourche  des  Chetima- 
chas.  Thence  to  the  Coroas  should  be  six  leagues  ;  to 
the  Natchez,  ten  ;  to  the  Tensas,  twelve  ;  to  the  Arkan- 
sas, eighty.  The  itinerary  seemed  plain,  and  by  autho- 
rity accurate.  He  prepared  to  follow  it. 

But  a  more  unreliable,  confusing  set  of  guide-books 
he  could  not  have  had,  as  will  be  seen.  The  collection 
consisted  of  that  version  of  the  priest  Zenobe  Membre's 
account  of  the  La  Salle  expedition  contained  in  the  sec- 
ond volume  of  Le  Clerc's  "  Etablissement  de  la  Foi ;  " 
the  priest  Hennepin's  plagiarism  from  the  same,  con- 
tained in  his  spurious  Relation,  and  an  account  by  Tonty, 
which  the  latter  afterwards  personally  disowned  to  Iber- 
ville. On  Ash  Wednesday  morning,  mass  was  duly  cele- 
brated, ashes  were  distributed,  and  a  cross  was  erected. 
In  default  of  wind,  the  journey  proceeded  by  oars. 

The  land  began  to  rise  perceptibly  ;  the  overflow, 
according  to  the  tally  kept  by  the  bark  of  the  trees, 
decreasing  to  a  foot  and  a  half.  From  the  usual  post 


40  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

of  observation,  a  tree-top,  a  sheet  of  water  behind  the 
right  bank  could  be  seen  running  in  the  same  direction 
as  the  river.1  Over  on  the  opposite  side  was  a  forest 
of  different  shades  of  green,  in  some  places  a  mere 
seam,  in  others  a  quarter  of  a  league  wide,  behind  it, 
prairies  dotted  with  tufts  of  foliage. 

Drift  began  to  load  the  rising  currents.  No  signs  of 
inhabitants  were  visible,  except  some  ferries,  moored  to 
the  bank,  —  bundles  of  cane  pointed  at  both  ends,  fast- 
ened together  by  cross  pieces  of  wood.  Every  morning 
each  camping-place  was  marked  by  a  cross  and  cuts  in 
the  bark  of  trees.  Every  evening  the  cannon  were  fired  ; 
but  the  reverberating  echoes,  tossed  from  bank  to  bank, 
awoke  no  hearers,  no  responders.  Canadians  were  kept 
hunting  for  game,  to  eke  out  the  ever-decreasing  rations. 
The  journals  make  note  of  great  alligators  pursued, 
sometimes  killed  and  cooked,  —  and  not  unpalatable 
meat  when  liberated  from  its  musk. 

The  travelling  was  slow  and  laborious,  mostly  by 
oars.  A  different  wind  was  needed  for  each  bend  in  the 
river,  and  the  river  boxed  the  compass  once,  if  not  twice, 
a  day.  The  water  continued  to  rise,  the  drift  to  in- 
crease. The  reinforced  currents  tore  irresistibly  round 
the  bends,  driving  the  helpless  boats  out  of  their  course, 
until  the  men  learned  to  hug  to  the  bank  in  the  quieter 
waters,  while  Bienville,  scouting  ahead  in  his  canoe,  acted 
as  guidon.  Fires  in  the  distance,  a  discarded  cracked 
canoe  (not  of  bark,  but  burned  out  of  the  whole  log) 
showed  that  they  were  creeping  upon  human  life. 
Quantities  of  blackberries  now  lined  the  banks,  but  no 
fruit  or  nut  trees  yet  enriched  the  forest.  The  trees 
1  Lake  Borgne. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  41 

grew  handsomer,  the  foliage  richer,  vines,  already  passed 
the  blossoming,  hung  in  festoons  heavy  with  promise  of 
grapes.  The  land  overflowed  still,  but  slightly,  only 
eight  or  ten  inches  deep.  Many  wild  beeves  were  seen, 
of  which  the  hunters  killed  one. 

Five  days  passed  with  diminishing  food,  and  increas- 
ing difficulties  of  driftwood  and  current  to  contend  with. 
Still  nothing  was  to  be  seen  ahead  but  the  half-sub- 
merged trees  which  the  tawny  waters  bore  down  upon 
them,  and  nothing  on  land  but  the  occasional  lethargic 
alligator,  or  chance  glimpses  of  more  attractive  game. 
The  men  began  to  show  fatigue  and  discouragement. 

At  last,  one  morning,  turning  a  bend,  they  came  in 
sight  of  two  Indians  paddling  a  pirogue  ;  but  in  great 
alarm,  the  savages  made  for  the  woods  and  escaped.  A 
gunshot  farther  on,  five  more  pirogues  of  Indians  were 
seen.  This  time,  landing  below  them,  Iberville  ap- 
proached them  on  foot.  All  fled  to  one  warrior.  Him 
Iberville  greeted  and  embraced  in  the  Indian  manner  ; 
and  sending  his  own  men  and  boats  out  into  the  middle 
of  the  stream,  he  persuaded  him  to  recall  his  compan- 
ions. This  the  Indian  did,  by  chanting  a  peace-song. 
A  small  gratuity  of  trifles  allayed  the  suspicions  and  se- 
cured the  good  will  of  the  Indians.  They  belonged 
to  the  Annochy  tribe.  Inquiring  after  his  Bayougoula 
friends,  Iberville  was  told  a  tantalizing  bit  of  informa- 
tion that  they  had  returned  to  their  village  by  a  little 
stream  that  ran  from  the  Mississippi  into  the  Sound. 
Iberville  asked  to  be  guided  to  this  village  ;  but  the 
Annochy  declined  to  interrupt  their  hunt.  A  hatchet, 
however,  bought  the  services  of  one. 

The  exhausted  larders  of  the  barges  were  replenished 


42  JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE  MOYNE, 

with  meat,  the  Indians  gladly  availing  themselves  of  the 
opportunity  to  trade  away  their  necessities  for  French 
trumpery.  One  old  fellow,  in  particular,  spread  out  his 
entire  stock  of  dried  beef  and  bear's  meat ;  and  sitting 
behind  it  in  market  style,  bargained  the  whole  of  it 
away  —  a  hundred  pounds  —  for  two  knives.  As  the 
Indians  had  not  heard  the  cannon,  one  was  shot  off  for 
their  edification.  They  threw  themselves  to  the  earth 
in  transports  of  fear  and  astonishment  at  such  a  terrific 
exhibition  of  power. 

That  night  the  camp  was  pitched  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  river,  —  according  to  Iberville's  calculations,  about 
thirty-five  leagues  from  its  mouth.  Near  by  was  a  small 
deserted  Indian  village  or  camp,  —  ten  or  more  cabins 
thatched  with  straw,  —  and  on  a  point  of  the  river's  bank, 
what  seemed  to  have  once  been  a  kind  of  stronghold,  a 
small  fortification  of  canes  and  saplings  the  height  of  a 
man,  enclosing  an  oval  space  fifty  feet  long  and  twenty- 
five  broad,  in  which  were  a  few  huts.  Both  banks  in 
this  locality  were  almost  impassable,  on  account  of  the 
canes,  which  grew  to  a  prodigious  height  and  thickness. 
The  guide  took  Iberville  six  leagues  above  this  stop- 
ping-place (about  the  location  now  of  the  city  of  New 
Orleans),  and  showed  him  the  Indian  portage  between 
the  river  and  the  bay  —  as  the  Indians  called  it  —  in 
which  the  French  ships  lay.  It  was  then  widely  strewed 
with  baggage  of  parties  going  and  returning,  over  which 
pirogues  could  be  easily  dragged.  To  demonstrate  how 
short  it  was,  the  guide  himself  took  a  package  from  the 
river  to  the  lake  (Lake  Pontchartrain)  and  returned. 

The  weather  changed  from  oppressive  heat  to  oppres- 
sive cold  ;  but  the  only  change  in  the  river  was  another 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  43 

increase  in  its  rapidity  and  crookedness.  The  rowers 
pulled  six  miles  to  advance  one,  and  averred  that  to  get 
around  a  bend  they  crossed  the  stream  four  or  five  times. 
While  they  were  camping  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river 
during  an  idle  day  caused  by  rain,  some  of  the  men 
went  out  hunting,  and  two  Breton  sailors  belonging  to 
the  "  Marin  "  were  lost.  Cannon  were  fired  at  intervals 
during  the  night  to  guide  them  to  camp,  and  at  day- 
light four  men  were  sent  into  the  woods  to  search  for 
them,  directed  by  Iberville  to  fire  their  guns  occasionally 
as  they  advanced.  When  they  returned,  after  a  fruit- 
less tramp,  Iberville  sent  out  another  party  of  eight 
men,  with  compasses,  starting  each  in  a  different  direc- 
tion, with  provisions,  in  case  they  found  the  wanderers, 
forbidding  them  to  return  to  the  camp  until  the  cannon 
signalled  them.  The  barges  were  ordered  up  and  down 
the  river  to  scan  the  banks.  All  in  vain  ;  no  trace  or 
sound  of  the  unfortunates  could  be  gathered,  and  the 
expedition  sorrowfully  had  to  abandon  the  search  and 
proceed  without  them. 

The  next  afternoon  they  passed  a  little  stream  about 
two  hundred  paces  wide,  flowing  into  the  river  from  the 
west.  The  guide  called  it  the  River  of  the  Ouachas 
(now  Bayou  Plaquemines).  A  league  and  a  half  beyond, 
they  met  two  pirogues  filled  with  Indian  men  and 
women.  These  turned  out  to  be  Ouachas  and  Baya- 
goulas.  After  trading  what  corn  they  had  to  the  French- 
men, the  Ouachas  continued  their  journey  to  their 
village,  two  days  distant,  while  the  Bayagoulas  turned 
back  to  announce  in  theirs  the  approach  of  visitors. 
The  French  landed,  set  up  an  iron  mill  they  had  with 
them,  and  ground  their  acquisition  of  corn.  Their  flour 


44  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

was  gone ;  they  had  very  little  bread  left.  With  the 
ground  corn  they  made  sagamity,  —  hominy  seasoned 
with  salt  pork  ;  and  this  formed  their  diet,  with  water, 
for  the  brandy  was  exhausted. 

At  half  past  six  o'clock  the  next  morning  they  were 
on  their  way  to  the  landing-place  of  the  Bayougoulas  ; 
and  nerved  by  the  prospect  of  rest  and  refreshment,  the 
men  rowed  their  best  and  with  a  will. 

A  league  below  the  landing,  a  pirogue  met  them,  with 
a  delegation  of  Bayagoulas  and  Mongoulachas,  singing; 
and  brandishing  a  calumet  three  feet  long,  brilliant  with 
its  decoration  of  coloured  feathers.  Passing  from  one 
barge  to  the  other,  they  presented  it,  on  the  part  of  their 
tribes,  to  th  white  men  to  smoke ;  after  which  the  calu- 
met-bearer stationed  himself  in  the  prow  of  Iberville's 
boat,  from  which  he  brandished  his  symbol  of  peace, 
and  chanted  his  song  to  the  assemblage  of  his  people 
waiting  on  the  bank.  As  Iberville  stepped  from  his 
boat,  he  was  taken  by  two  warriors,  who,  gently  sup- 
porting him  under  the  arms,  led  him  to  a  cleared  space, 
spread  with  bear-skins,  where  the  chief  sat  in  state,  sur- 
rounded by  warriors  and  women,  —  a  mark  of  confidence. 
Sauvole,  Bienville,  and  the  priest,  received  with  the 
same  cordiality,  were  also  led  forward  with  the  same 
ceremony.  Resting  on  two  forked  sticks,  in  the  very 
centre  of  the  meeting-place,  guarded  by  a  warrior  who 
never  left  it  nor  took  his  eyes  off  it,  Iberville  beheld  the 
brave  calumet  which  he  had  presented  to  the  Indians 
on  the  sea-shore,  —  the  miniature  ship,  with  \\-\QJteur-de- 
lys  banner. 

After  much  smoking,  the  priest  only  feigning  to  smoke, 
sagamity,  cooked  with  soft  red  beans,  was  passed  around, 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  45 

with  various  kinds  of  corn-bread,  pones  baked  in  ashes, 
and  different  cakes  made  of  fine  corn-flour,  enough  not 
only  for  the  officers,  but  for  the  whole  expedition. 
Iberville  gave  the  usual  largess  in  the  shape  of  presents, 
adding  a  treat  of  brandy  weakened  with  water,  —  of 
which,  however,  the  Indians  partook  sparingly,  finding 
it  rather  ardent  for  their  uncivilized  stomachs. 

The  Mongoulacha  chief,  described  as  "a  man  of 
inconceivable  pride,  never  laughing,  staring  fixedly  be- 
fore him  all  the  time,"  wore  a  garment  which  was  like 
a  light  in  the  wilderness  to  the  Frenchmen,  —  a  coat,  or 
capote,  of  blue  Poitou  serge.  In  response  to  the  eager 
inquiries  about  it,  he  said  it  had  been  given  to  him,  in 
passing,  by  the  "  Iron  Hand,"  Tonty,  of  whom  he  re- 
lated confirmatively  many  incidents,  partly  by  signs, 
and  partly  in  his  own  language.  Iberville  says  that  he 
could  understand  the  words  he  took  down  in  writing 
on  the  sea-shore,  but  that  his  brother  Bienville,  who  had 
kept  the  guide  with  him  in  his  canoe,  had  learned  the 
language  so  well  that  he  could  understand  everything 
in  it,  and  speak  it  passably. 

The  La  Salle  Relations  spoke  of  the  river's  dividing 
into  two  channels,  and  said  :  "  We  followed  the  channel 
to  the  right,  although  we  had  intended  taking  the  other, 
but  passed  it  in  a  fog  without  seeing  it."  Iberville,  who 
wished  to  descend  by  this  channel,  or  fork,  on  the  right, 
to  the  sea,  and  thus  acquaint  himself  with  all  the  outlets 
of  the  river,  catechised  the  Indians  about  it.  But  he 
could  hear  nothing  of  it  from  them.  They  maintained 
that  the  Mississippi  neither  forked  nor  branched,  and 
that  Tonty  had  passed  by  them  both  going  to  and  re- 
turning from  the  mouth. 


46  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

Iberville  could  not  square  this  at  all,  he  says,  with  the 
accounts  in  the  Relations,  especially  with  that  of  the 
Recollet  Hennepin,  whom  he  thought  himself  more 
particularly  obliged  to  trust. 

The  Indians  drew  a  map  of  the  country  to  demon- 
strate how  Tonty  had  passed  from  them  to  the  Houma. 
As  for  the  deserted  pillaged  village  of  the  Tan- 
gipahoas,  their  village  had  never  been  on  the  banks 
of  the  Mississippi.  They  had  formed  one  of  the  seven 
tribes  of  the  Quinipissas  whose  villages  the  Houma 
had  destroyed,  adopting  the  survivors  into  their  own 
tribe,  where  Iberville  could  see  them. 

The  doughty  heart,  which  had  been  equal  to  any 
enterprise,  however  perilous,  sank  before  such  dis- 
crepancies and  contradictions.  He  was,  as  he  says, 
in  a  very  embarrassing  situation :  one  hundred  and 
ninety  leagues  away  from  his  vessels,  his  provisions 
exhausted,  his  men  spent  with  their  strenuous  and 
constant  toil  up  stream ;  with  his  establishment  still 
to  locate,  and  Surgeres  behind  him,  with  orders  to 
return  to  France  in  six  weeks.  "  Always,"  he  writes, 
"coming  back  to  the  Relation  of  the  Recollet  father, 
not  being  able  to  believe  him  so  unworthy  as  to  make 
a  false  statement  to  the  whole  of  France,"  although  he 
knew  that  the  priest  had  lied  oft  and  arrantly  in  his 
accounts  of  Canada  and  Hudson  Bay. 

There  was  also,  of  course,  the  suspicion  that  the 
Bayagoulas,  out  of  fear  or  jealousy  of  the  Quini- 
pissas, might  be  deceiving  him. 

He  was  convinced  that  if  he  put  back  from  where  he 
was,  without  further  proof  that  Tonty  had  passed  by 
there,  and  that  he,  Iberville,  was  in  the  Mississippi,  it 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  47 

would  not  be  credited  in  France  that  he  had  been 
there,  in  face  of  the  contradictory  Relations.  There 
seemed  nothing  for  him  to  do  but  to  push  on  to  the 
Houma,  —  still  five  days'  journey  farther  off  up  the 
river. 

During  his  cogitations,  the  afternoon  sped  in  feasting, 
singing,  and  dancing.  At  nightfall  the  Indians  took 
their  departure  for  their  village,  about  a  mile  inland, 
on  the  high  land,  making  a  brilliant  procession,  hold- 
ing blazing  fagots  of  cane  in  their  hands  to  light  their 
way.  The  French  promised  to  visit  them  the  next 
day. 

By  daylight  a  deputation  of  them  was  back  again, 
singing,  and  bringing  the  precious  calumet,  which  when 
off  duty  was  carefully  kept  in  a  leathern  bag.  The 
ceremony  of  smoking  it  over,  it  was  again  deposited  on 
the  forked  sticks,  a  warrior  mounting  guard  over  it. 
At  six  o'clock,  mass  being  said  and  breakfast  eaten, 
Iberville,  Bienville,  Sauvole,  the  priest,  and  two  Cana- 
dians set  out  for  the  village.  They  found  it  situated 
near  a  little  stream  surrounded  by  a  palisade  of  cane 
ten  feet  high.  They  were  met  at  the  gateway,  and 
led  to  the  open  space  before  the  cabin  of  the  Mongou- 
lacha  chief,  who  seemed  to  outrank  the  Bayougoula 
chief.  When  they  were  seated  on  the  cane  mats 
spread  upon  the  ground  for  them,  Iberville  displayed 
his  presents,  —  a  gala  lot,  grandiose  in  the  pleased  eyes 
of  the  savages,  a  scarlet  doublet  embroidered  in  tinsel, 
scarlet  hose,  shirts,  blankets,  mirrors,  beads,  hatchets, 
knives. 

The  Indians  reciprocated  with  their  richest,  —  twelve 
large  dressed  deer-skins  (which  Iberville  gave  to  his 


48  JEAN  BAPT1STE   LE  MOYNE, 

men    for  shirts),   and   copious  feasts  of   sagamity  and 
bread. 

While  the  presents  were  being  apportioned,  Iberville 
promenaded  through  the  village,  of  which  he  writes  a 
minute  description.  The  temple,  which  occupied  the 
central  position  in  it,  was  round,  about  thirty  feet  in  cir- 
cumference, and  constructed  of  timber  set  upright  in  the 
ground,  and  cemented  half  way  up  with  mud.  The 
roof  was  a  conical-shaped  cap  made  of  split  cane  neatly 
joined  together,  with  rude  figures  of  birds  and  animals 
daubed  upon  it,  noticeably  a  cock  in  red.  Over  the 
entrance  was  a  shed  eight  feet  deep,  supported  by  two 
large  pillars  connected  by  a  great  transverse  beam.  On 
one  side  of  the  entrance  were  the  same  rude  images 
as  on  the  roof;  on  the  other,  the  opossum  appeared 
in  all  its  carefully  accentuated  manifold  uglinesses,  - 
pig's  head,  rat's  tail,  badger's  skin,  and  pouched  stom- 
ach. Iberville,  describing  it,  mentions  that  he  had 
killed  and  examined  eight.  Entering  the  narrow  tall 
door,  two  dried  worm-eaten  logs  were  perceived, 
smouldering,  end  to  end,  with  a  fire  that  was  supposed 
never  to  die  out.  At  the  far  end  was  a  kind  of  table, 
a  scaffold  upon  which  lay  bundles  of  bear,  deer,  and 
beef  skins,  —  the  offerings  of  the  faithful  to  their  tutelary 
deity,  the  opossum,  called,  in  the  vernacular  of  the  tribe, 
Choucouacha,  whose  image,  painted  in  red  and  black, 
ornamented  the  walls.  Among  the  offerings  Iberville 
discovered  a  glass  bottle,  —  another  track  in  the  sand  for 
him,  which  he  failed  not  to  trace  to  its  origin.  It  also 
had  been  left  by  Tonty  when  in  passing  there  to  or  from 
the  mouth  of  the  river. 

With  the  exception  of  the  portico,  the  cabins  were 


///      SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  49 

constructed  exactly  like  the  temple,  some  as  large, 
others  smaller.  The  earth  furnished  the  flooring  to  all, 
and  the  opening  in  the  apex  of  the  conical  roof  did  duty 
for  chimney  and  windows.  The  beds,  elevated  about 
two  feet  above  the  ground,  were  frames,  with  bark- 
covered  twigs  or  branches  the  size  of  a  man's  arm,  for 
slats,  over  which  were  laid  cane  mats  for  matresses,  and 
bear-skins  for  covering.  The  only  other  furniture  of  the 
cabins  were  the  earthen  pots,  which  the  women  made 
neatly  and  delicately  enough.  The  men  went  naked,  — 
"  without  perceiving  it,"  as  Iberville  says.  The  women 
wore  girdles  of  cloth  woven  from  the  fibres  of  the  bark 
of  trees,  coloured  mostly  red  and  white,  and  fringed  with 
long  cords,  which  fell  to  the  knee,  moving  gracefully  with 
every  motion  of  the  body.  The  little  girls  wore  girdles 
of  moss.  The  young  women  —  Iberville  says  he  saw 
no  pretty  ones  among  them  —  had  a  fashion  of  blacken- 
ing their  teeth  and  tattooing  their  faces  and  breasts,  and 
were  much  given  to  bracelets  and  bangles.  All  the 
women  wore  their  hair  in  packages,  as  it  is  described, 
on  top  of  their  heads.  The  young  men  adorned  them- 
selves with  a  primitive  and  masculine  kind  of  a  sash  made 
of  feathers  strung  together,  weighted  at  the  end  with  bits 
of  stone  or  metal,  which,  hanging  down  behind  like  a 
horse's  tail,  jangled  and  tinkled  when  the  wearers  danced, 
and  made  as  much  clatter  as  a  courier  arriving. 

The  village  consisted,  in  all,  of  about  two  hundred 
cabins,  with  some  hundred  and  fifty  men  and  a  very 
small  proportion  of  women,  who  had  suffered  greatly 
from  the  small-pox,  which  had  destroyed  a  quarter  of  the 
tribe,  and  which  was  prevalent  at  the  time.  The  dead, 
wrapped  only  in  cane  mats,  and  disposed  under  little 

4 


5O  JEAN  BAFTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

conical  covers  on  the  scaffolds  erected  all  around  the 
village,  attracted  huge  flocks  of  bustards,  and  otherwise 
gave  notice  of  the  recent  great  mortality.  The  fields 
were  small.  They  were  tilled  with  implements  made  of 
bones,  and  when  the  crops  were  gathered,  served  as  play- 
grounds for  a  game  which  consisted  in  throwing  great 
sticks  after  a  little  bullet-shaped  pebble.  Iberville  thought 
them  the  most  beggarly  set  of  Indian  warriors  he  had  ever 
seen.  Although  well-made  and  agile,  their  bodies  were 
not  hardened  by  exercise  or  discipline  ;  they  kept  their 
faces  painted,  and  wore  their  hair  short,  and  lived  almost 
entirely  on  corn,  with  only  an  occasional  treat  of  game, 
which,  however,  they  had  to  hunt  at  great  distances, 
the  boundaries  of  the  different  hunting  territories  being 
strictly  defined,  and  maintained  by  force  of  arms.  They 
possessed  a  few  chickens,  which,  tradition  related,  they 
had  brought  with  them  or  obtained  from  some  tribes 
coming  from  the  Far  West.  The  surrounding  forests 
were  rich  in  all  sorts  of  woods  except  pine,  but  with  no 
fruit  trees  except  the  wild  apple  and  peach. 

A  party  of  Indians  escorted  the  French  to  their  camp. 
The  rest  of  the  warriors  followed  an  hour  afterwards, 
bringing  presents  of  corn  and  bread,  the  Mongoulacha 
chief  resplendently  conspicuous  among  them  in  his  red 
doublet. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  5! 


CHAPTER  V. 

A  GREAT  cross,  bearing  the  arms  of  France,  was  raised 
the  following  morning  at  the  landing-place,  and  the  next 
stage  of  the  journey  began.  The  Bayougoula  chief, 
accompanying  the  party  as  guide  and  introducer,  went 
in  the  barge  with  Iberville,  eight  of  his  men  following  in 
pirogues.  He  pointed  out  to  Iberville,  on  the  right- 
hand  side  of  the  river  as  they  ascended,  the  little 
stream  which  conducted  to  the  home  of  the  Biloxi  and 
Annochy.  He  called  it  the  Ascantia  River,  and  said 
it  was  the  only  fork  he  knew  of  from  the  Mississippi 
to  the  sea. 

They  came  to  the  dividing-line  between  the  hunting- 
grounds  of  the  Houmas  and  Bayagoulas,  —  a  little  river 
which  had  a  great  reputation  for  fish,  but  which  yielded 
to  the  French,  however,  only  a  meagre  result  of  "  cat." 
Scattered  about  the  bank  were  a  number  of  cabins,  with 
the  usual  palmetto  thatchings ;  and  where  it  could  catch 
the  eye,  stood  a  red  leafless  cornstalk,  with  heads  of 
fish  and  bear,  —  the  votive  offerings  of  lucky  hunters.1 
Bienville,  who  had  landed  with  the  Indians  two  leagues 
below  for  a  bear-hunt,  here  rejoined  his  party  with  a  fine 
trophy  of  his  success.  But  there  are  two  sides  to  every 
hunting  story ;  and  Sauvole,  with  the  careful  veracity  of 

1  The  Baton-Rouge  which  gave  the  capital  of  Louisiana  its 
name. 


52  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE   MOYNE, 

the  sportsman  who  is  not  in  the  hunt,  explains  in  his 
narrative  that  it  was  an  Indian  who  discovered  the  bear 
in  the  hollow  of  the  tree,  and  drove  it  out  by  dropping 
fire-brands  upon  it ;  and  that  all  that  Bienville  did  was 
to  shoot  the  bear  as  it  came  out,  and  that  he  had  been 
forced  to  yield  the  game  to  the  discoverer  of  it. 

They  now  passed  the  first  island  in  the  river ;  it  was 
about  a  league  long.  Two  leagues  above  the  island 
the  right  bank  rose  to  an  elevation  of  fifty  feet,  which 
continued  for  six  miles,  the  opposite  bank  remaining 
as  flat  as  ever.  And  still  two  leagues  farther  on,  the 
Bayagoula  chief  pointed  out  to  Iberville  a  little  bayou 
not  six  feet  wide,  by  which,  he  said,  if  the  barges 
could  only  get  through,  a  whole  day's  journey  would 
be  saved. 

The  Canadian  commander  was  not  one  to  be  stopped  by 
an  "  if"  in  such  an  emergency,  with  time  to  be  shortened. 
He  immediately  halted  his  barges  and  sent  Bienville  for- 
ward in  his  canoe  to  investigate.  His  report  was  that 
the  barges  could  be  taken  through  at  the  expense  of  a 
little  work.  Orders  were  given  to  the  Canadians,  who 
shouldered  their  axes  and  went  to  work.  A  drift-pile 
thirty  feet  high  and  five  hundred  paces  thick  was  cut 
through,  a  pathway  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long 
was  cleared  for  the  portage  of  the  baggage,  and  the 
bottom  of  the  runlet  cleared  of  obstructions  and  as 
much  as  possible  levelled.  The  luggage  was  unshipped 
and  carried  over  the  portage,  pulleys  were  rigged  to  the 
trees,  and  the  barges  slowly  tolled  along. 

It  was  raining,  and  the  trampled  ground  soon  became 
a  mire  in  which  the  men  could  not  keep  foothold  ;  but 
under  the  urgings  of  their  commander,  and  their  own 


SIEUR   DE  BIENVILLE.  53 

eagerness  to  knock  off  at  least  one  day  from  their  irk- 
some rowing,  the  men  accomplished  their  task.  At  nine 
o'clock  at  night,  by  the  blazing  light  of  cane  fagots,  the 
barges  were  launched  out  of  the  by-way  into  the  great 
river  again,  with  eighteen  miles  safely  put  behind  them. 
Thus  Pointe  Coupe"  e  was  made,  —  a  cut-off  which  the  Mis- 
sissippi, as  keen  to  save  time  and  distance  as  Iberville, 
was  not  slow  to  profit  by,  abandoning  for  it  in  time  its 
original  channel.  The  tired  labourers  crossed  to  the 
bank,  where  Bienville,  preceding  them,  had  the  camp  and 
supper  already  prepared,  —  a  supper  of  Indian  simplicity 
and  frugality ;  the  last  two  hundred  pounds  of  provis- 
ions in  each  barge  being  reserved  for  the  return  voyage. 

The  crews  rowed  through  the  last  stretch  of  the  jour- 
ney, six  long  leagues,  cursing  and  swearing,  Iberville 
writes,  against  all  authors  of  false  Relations  and  of  such 
prolongations  of  anxiety,  fatigue,  and  deprivation. 

Cannon  were  fired  well  in  advance,  to  apprise  the 
Indians  of  their  approach.  Experience  had  evidently 
taught  the  savages  whom  and  what  to  expect  after  such 
an  announcement,  and  the  proper  palliative  ceremonies. 

As  soon  as  the  barges  hove  in  sight,  the  deputations 
waiting  at  the  landing-place  raised  their  chant  and  flour- 
ished their  calumet.  The  Eayagoula  chief  answered 
in  kind  for  the  French  ;  embraces  and  tendernesses  were 
profusely  lavished  in  the  reception,  and  first  the  officers, 
then  all  the  crew,  were  smoked  with. 

Iberville,  Bienville,  Sauvole,  and  the  priest,  with  an 
escort  of  Canadians,  set  out  at  once  for  the  village. 

The  deputation,  singing  all  the  time,  walked  ahead, 
leading,  without  a  stop,  through  swamps  and  canebrakes, 
and  up  and  down  the  little'  steep,  irregular  hills  that 


54  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

diversified  the  difficulties  of  the  way,  at  a  speed  which 
severely  taxed  the  heavily  clad  white  men  to  follow. 

Four  hundred  feet  from  the  village  another  deputation, 
with  song  and  pipe,  stood  waiting,  and  another  ceremo- 
nious smoking  was  inflicted  upon  the  impatient  Iberville. 
They  proceeded  again,  and  again  were  halted  upon  a 
little  elevation  about  a  hundred  paces  away,  until  the 
chief  was  officially  informed  by  a  messenger  of  their 
arrival,  and  the  proper  invitation  to  advance  was  received. 
This  time  the  procession  attained  the  entrance  of  the 
village,  the  chanters  always  in  front,  singing,  the  warriors 
following  with  their  calumets. 

The  chief  and  two  of  his  dignitaries  now  made  their 
appearance,  each  one  holding  —  as  a  last  propitiatory 
and  complimentary  effort  —  a  white  cross,  the  calumet 
of  the  Christians. 

Iberville  and  his  officers  were  saluted,  and  carefully 
escorted  to  the  temple,  where,  on  account  of  the  rain, 
mats  had  been  spread  for  the  reception. 

After  smoking  and  partaking  of  sagamity  and  pumpkin, 
Iberville  came  directly  to  the  point  with  his  presents, 
explaining  that  he  had  still  handsomer  ones  in  the 
barges  awaiting  donation,  — a  piece  of  astuteness  which 
the  Indians  seemed  to  understand  and  appreciate  per- 
fectly well.  Their  politeness  was  extremely  painstaking. 
After  each  separate  gift,  the  whole  assembly  would  rise, 
and  extending  their  arms,  give  the  prolonged  "  Hou  ! 
Hou  !  Hou  !  "  howl  of  thanks.  The  rain  ceasing,  an 
adjournment  was  made  to  the  open  space  in  front  of 
the  chiefs  cabin,  where  all  the  village  could  gather 
around  the  strangers,  and  where  the  smoking  and  eating 
were  not  suffered  to  languish  a  single  instant.  In  the 


SI  EUR  DE   BIENV1LLE.  55 

afternoon  a  ball  in  all  form  was  given.  Singers,  station- 
ing themselves  on  one  side  the  open  space,  raised  the 
music,  beating  time  with  \hz_chicJiicouchy  *  rattles  in 
their  hands.  A  moment's  pause  to  whet  expectation 
and  curiosity,  and  the  youth  and  beauty  of  the  tribe 
bounded  into  the  circle,  —  thirty-five  girls  and  young 
men,  gorgeous  in  all  their  savage  panoply  of  costume,  with 
their  girdles  of  feathers,  fringe,  and  tinsel  flying  and 
tinkling  in  the  air,  faces  and  bodies  glittering  with  fresh 
paint.  The  girls  wore  bouquets  of  bird  plumes  in  their 
braids,  and  carried  in  their  hands  long  bunches  of  varie- 
gated feathers,  which  they  used  as  fans  and  to  beat  time 
with. 

The  bucks  had  added  to  their  bravery  by  hanging 
disks  of  thin  metal  from  their  girdles,  which  clashed  and 
banged  against  their  knees,  adding  a  martial  beat  to  the 
measures  of  the  chichicouchy  and  the  songs. 

For  three  hours,  the  dancing  was  kept  up,  without  a 
sign  of  fatigue  or  lessened  pleasure.  When  night  fell, 
all  repaired  to  the  cabin  of  the  chief,  where,  after  supper 
by  the  light  of  a  cane  fagot  fifteen  feet  long  and  two 
thick,  the  young  men  danced  a  war-dance,  armed  cap- 
a-pie,  with  bows,  arrows,  knives,  and  tomahawks.  At 
midnight  all  retired,  leaving  the  chief  with  his  guests,  — 
not  to  repose,  however  ;  for  Iberville  says  that  the  Houma 
and  Bayagoula  chiefs  began  immediately  to  harangue 
one  the  other,  the  Houma  speaking  for  himself,  the 
Bayagoula  for  himself  and  the  French. 

The  Houma  chief  is  described  as  a  venerable  patri- 
arch of  seventy,  five  feet  ten  inches  tall,  and  stout  in 
proportion,  with  a  flattened  forehead  which  was  then  an 
1  Gourds,  holding  a  few  pebbles. 


56  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

obsolete  fashion,  and  not  customary  among  the  men  of 
his  tribe. 

The  Houma  village  was  essentially  like  the  Baya- 
goula.  The  cabins,  numbering  about  one  hundred,  and 
forty,  were  built  in  a  double  row  around  the  top  of  a  hill, 
with  the  usual  open  space  in  the  centre.  At  most,  it 
held  three  hundred  and  fifty  warriors.  The  cornfields 
lay  in  the  valleys  and  on  neighbouring  hills,  the  soil  of 
which  was  black,  strong,  and  rich. 

The  French  wished  to  return  to  their  boats  the 
first  thing  in  the  morning  ;  but  the  chief  detained  them 
until  the  women  had  finished  pounding  a  present  of 
corn  for  them.  While  they  were  waiting,  six  of  the  men 
from  the  boats,  anxious  at  their  long  absence,  appeared 
in  search  of  them.  The  pounding  completed,  all  took 
their  departure,  after  firing  numerous  salutes.  They 
were  followed  to  the  outskirts  of  the  settlement  by  pro- 
testing hosts  and  politely  weeping  women.  Two  hours 
after  their  arrival  at  the  boat  the  chief  paid  the  return 
visit,  followed  by  a  retinue  of  half  his  village,  loaded  with 
presents  of  corn.  The  men  all  carried  crosses,  and  when 
they  came  to  the  great  cross  erected  by  the  French, 
they  marched  solemnly  in  procession  around  it,  singing 
to  it  and  throwing  offerings  of  tobacco  upon  it,  deter- 
mined at  any  price  to  secure  its  good-will.  They  re- 
ceived the  anticipated  return  of  the  handsomer  presents 
awaiting  them  in  the  barges,  and  were  well  satisfied  with 
their  red  embroidered  coat,  and  the  shirts,  knives,  hatch- 
ets, flints,  and  beads  that  Iberville  gave  with  a  liberal 
hand. 

The  calumet  was  smoked,  and  one  of  the  principal 
warriors  made  a  speech  to  Iberville,  which  lasted  over  a 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  57 

half  hour  ;  all  the  officers  listening  gravely  and  atten- 
tively, although  not  one  of  them  understood  a  word  of 
it.  Iberville  needing  more  corn,  forty  men  were  sent 
during  the  night  to  the  village  for  it.  They  returned  by 
daylight,  bringing  at  least  three  barrels  of  it,  with  quan- 
tities of  pumpkins  and  some  fowls. 

The  Houmas  had  much  to  say  of  Tonty,  who  had 
passed  five  days  with  them  at  their  village,  leaving  his 
boats  at  the  same  place  where  Iberville  had  moored  his. 
But  the  Quinipissas  gave  the  lie  direct  to  the  Rela- 
tions by  stating  that  their  village  was  seven  days  distant 
from  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  that  neither  Tonty 
nor  any  of  the  French  had  ever  been  there,  —  which,  says 
Iberville,  greatly  distressed  and  perplexed  him ;  and 
he  could  not  see  that  he  was  any  nearer  certainty 
than  when  at  the  Bayagoulas.  Apprehending  that  the 
Houmas  might  also  have  reasons  for  concealing  the 
truth,  there  seemed  to  be  no  way  of  arriving  at  the 
solution  of  his  doubts  and  the  Relations'  misstatements, 
except  by  going  on  to  the  next  tribe  mentioned  in  the 
Relations,  —  to  the  Coroas,  six  leagues  below  whom, 
according  to  the  Recollet  father,  the  enigmatical  fork  in 
the  river  had  been  met.  The  next  day,  Sunday,  after 
the  usual  oratorical  display  by  the  Indian  warriors,  and 
another  procession  around  the  cross,  and  more  ob- 
lations of  tobacco  upon  it,  the  boats  pushed  off  from 
shore  for  another  forced  journey  of  still  nine  days'  more 
hard  rowing  up  stream. 

Iberville  started  in  the  pirogue  with  the  five  Houmas 
and  one  Tensas,  who  had  consented  to  accompany  the 
expedition  ;  but  in  order  to  see  if  the  Tensas  would  not 
talk  differently  when  separated  from  his  crowd,  he  soon 


58  JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE  MOYNE, 

changed  to  his  barge,  taking  the  Tensas  with  him.  The 
latter,  however,  firmly  sustained  the  assertion  that  he  had 
been  as  high  as  the  Arkansas,  and  that  the  Mississippi,  or 
Malbanchia,  did  not  fork.  He  drew  a  map  of  the  coun- 
try, showing  that  in  three  days  they  would  arrive  at  a  river 
flowing  in  from  the  west,  —  the  Tassenocogoula  (Red 
River),  which  had  two  forks  ;  and  upon  one  of  them  he 
named  several  tribes  mentioned  by  Tonty  in  his  ac- 
count of  La  Salle's  journey  towards  the  Arkansas.  One 
day,  after  leaving  the  Tassenocogoula,  the  Tensas  said  the 
Mississippi,  by  a  great  turn,  would  lead  them  back  to 
within  a  league  and  a  half  of  the  Houma  village  they 
had  just  left,  where  they  would  find  the  chief  and  his 
warriors  waiting  to  feast  them.  Three  days  after  this 
turn  they  would  reach  the  village  of  Theloel,  composed 
of  eight  smaller  villages,  of  which  the  Natchez  formed 
one.  From  the  Natchez,  ascending  the  river  two  days 
and  a  half,  they  would  reach  the  Tensas,  and  three  days 
higher  up  than  the  Tensas  they  would  find  the  Coroas, 
or  Yazous.  All  of  which  was  fairly  correct ;  but  nothing 
could  have  been  more  different  from  the  order  of  tribes 
and  distances  given  in  the  Relation  of  Father  Zenobe 
Membre",  contained  in  Father  Chretien  Le  Clerc's 
"  ttablissement  de  la  Foi,"  his  guide. 

In  one  column,  Iberville  set  down  the  tribes  as  they 
appeared  in  the  Relation,  with  the  distances  there 
ascribed  between  them.  In  another,  he  placed  the 
distances  he  had  made  so  far  in  the  journey,  as  calcu- 
lated by  himself  and  his  pilots,  with  the  Indian  villages 
he  had  passed,  filling  out  the  rest  of  the  journey,  as  far 
as  the  Arkansas,  with  the  distances  and  tribes,  all  the 
Indians  individually  and  collectively  agreed  upon.  The 


SI  EUR   DE   B/EA'riLLE.  59 

result  of  a  comparison  between  them  was  a  difference  of 
ninety-three  miles  in  distance,  and  no  resemblance  what- 
ever in  the  order  of  villages. 

It  was  noon ;  the  stop  was  made  for  dinner.  He 
subjected  the  Indians  again  to  a  rigid  crossrexamination. 
The  Bayagoula,  impressed  by  such  obstinate  pertina- 
city in  looking  for  a  fork  which  did  not  exist  in  the 
river,  and  knowing  full  well  that  Tonty  had  not  passed 
through  any  fork,  but  had  gone  to  the  mouth  and  re- 
turned by  the  main  stream,  finally  was  driven  to  confess 
that  the  Mongoulacha  chief  had  in  his  possession  a 
written  paper  like  the  one  Iberville  had  given  him, 
which  Tonty  had  left  with  him  to  give  to  a  man  who  was 
to  come  up  the  river  from  the  sea.  This  paper  could 
be  for  no  other  than  La  Salle.  Iberville  reflected  for  a 
space  of  two  hours,  and  then,  he  says,  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  so  many  Indians  could  not  lie  about  so 
patent  a  fact  as  a  fork  in  the  river.  If  Father  Zenobe 
Membre's  Relation  was  true,  that  La  Salle,  Tonty,  and  he 
had  descended  by  the  western  branch  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  as  the  Indians  and  this  letter  conclusively  proved 
that  Tonty  had  descended  and  ascended,  the  second 
time,  by  the  same  route  as  he  did  the  first  with  La 
Salle,  and  that  he  had  confidently  expected  La  Salle  to 
ascend  also  by  this  route,  coming  from  the  Gulf  into  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  —  then  this  stream  upon  which  they 
travelled  and  which  Iberville  was  on,  according  to 
them,  was  not  the  Mississippi,  but  a  western  branch  of 
the  Mississippi  ;  and  as  there  was,  as  far  as  Pensacola,  no 
considerable  stream  east  of  this,  flowing  into  the  Gulf, 
except  the  Mobile,  then  it  followed  that  that  must  be 
the  Mississippi,  —  which  was  an  absurdity,  as  the  mouth 


60  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

of  the  Mobile  River  did  not  at  all  answer  to  the  description 
of  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  And  Iberville  says, 
further,  he  knew  that  when  Father  Zenobe  was  at  Bay 
St.  Louis  (Matagorda  Bay)  with  La  Salle,  he  had  stated 
that  that  water  might  belong  to  the  western  branch  of 
the  Mississippi,  but  that  he  was  not  able  to  recognize  it, 
having  only  descended  the  eastern  branch.  Throwing 
the  priestly  narrative  to  the  winds,  and  pronouncing  the 
author  a  liar  who  had  disguised  every  truth,  the  Cana- 
dian commander  determined  that  he  was  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi, and  that  he  would  consume  no  more  time  and: 
expend  no  more  trouble  in  the  vain  attempt  of  trying 
to  make  his  facts  tally  with  the  Re'collet's  fiction.  He 
issued  his  orders,  the  boats  were  turned  down  stream, 
and  by  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  they  were  again  tied  at 
the  landing  of  the  Houmas. 

Bienville  and  two  Canadians  were  immediately  speeded 
to  the  village  to  acquaint  the  Bayagoulas  tarrying  there 
with  the  change  of  plan,  and  bid  them  be  at  the  land- 
ing-place by  daylight  if  they  wished  to  return  with  the 
French.  But  the  Bayougoula  warriors,  engaged  in  frol- 
icking with  the  Houma  women,  showed  so  little  dispo- 
sition to  heed  the  summons  that  Bienville,  feigning  great 
indignation,  turned  upon  his  heel,  and  refusing  all  refresh- 
ment and  overtures,  returned  to  the  camp,  making  the 
sixteen  —  or  more  correctly,  considering  the  country,  the 
eighteen  —  miles  in  less  than  three  hours  :  an  exhibition 
of  physical  strength  which  all  the  journals  note  with  admi- 
ration, mentioning  especially  that  he  had  to'feel  most  of 
his  way  home  in  the  dark,  through  the  canebrakes. 

The  village,  terrified  beyond  measure  at  such  porten- 
tous conduct,  hurriedly  got  corn,  pumpkins,  chickens, 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  6 1 

and  calumets  together,  loaded  them  upon  the  recalci- 
trant Bayagoulas,  who  were  urged  to  hasten  with  all 
speed  after  the  offended  messenger,  the  Houma  chief 
sending  six  of  his  tribe  along  with  them,  and  promising 
to  present  himself  in  the  morning. 

Iberville  accepted  their  explanations  and  excuses,  and 
sent  back  some  of  the  Houmas  to  the  village  by  torch- 
light for  more  corn,  which  he  offered  to  buy.  But  the 
chief  marched  in  the  next  morning  at  the  head  of  ninety 
of  his  people,  men  and  women,  bearing  full  supplies  of 
provisions  as  presents,  all  brimming  over  with  such  de- 
ferences and  homages  to  the  cross,  and  such  devices  in 
the  way  of  politeness  and  tendernesses  to  the  French, 
that  the  threatened  harmony  was  completely  restored, 
and  the  reconciliation  made  a  love-feast. 

,It  was  not  long  before  the  anxious  hosts  had  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  their  difficult  guests  push  forward 
the  preparations  for  departure  ;  and  there  was  another 
effusion  of  embraces  and  protestations  on  both  sides/ 
Finally  the  moment  of  departure  came,  the  officers 
were  supported  to  the  barges,  the  barges  pushed  off, 
the  cannon  fired  a  salute,  the  Indians  shouted,  the 
French  cried,  "  Vive  le  roi  !  "  With  supra-Gallic  refine- 
ment of  compliment,  these  savage  Frenchmen  gave 
back  the  cry  in  their  crude  but  eager  imitations  until 
the  barges  disappeared  down  the  river. 

Rowing  willingly  and  easily  down  stream  towards 
bread  and  wine,  and  away  from  corn-meal  and  simple 
water,  the  men  brought  the  barges  next  day  to  the 
Ascantia,  the  little  river  that  led  to  the  lake  where  the 
ships  lay  at  anchor.  The  canoes  gained  a  day  by  going 
through  the  new  "cut-off,"  where  they  found,  they  re- 


62  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

ported,  the  alligators  swarming  around  the  still  glowing 
embers  of  their  fires. 

The  large  boats  not  being  able  to  get  through  the 
Ascantia,  Iberville  determined  to  explore  it  himself  in 
pirogues.  He  left  the  expedition  in  command  of  his 
next  in  rank,  Sauvole,  and  his  own  barge,  with  the  Bay- 
agoula  chief,  to  Bienville,  whom  he  charged  to  buy  if 
possible,  but  at  any  hazards  to  secure,  the  all-important 
letter  of  Tonty  from  the  Mongoulacha  chief.  Then, 
pushing  through  the  tangled  opening  of  the  little  stream, 
he,  with  his  Indian  guide  and  four  Canadian  attendants, 
in  their  two  pirogues,  were  lost  to  view. 

In  answer  to  their  cannon-shot,  Sauvole  and  Bien- 
ville found  a  party  of  Bayagoulas  waiting  at  their  land- 
ing with  song  and  calumet  and  the  joyful  news  that  the 
two  lost  sailors  had  been  found,  and  at  the  time  were 
in  the  village. 

Here  the  first  disagreeable  feeling  was  elicited  from 
the  natives  by  an  untoward  incident,  which  modern 
readers  must  regret,  although  the  chroniclers  of  it,  in 
no  mood  either  for  Re"collet  priests  or  their  narratives, 
treat  it  with  an  unseemly  want  of  sympathy,  if  not  with 
actual  levity.  In  the  confusion  of  disembarkation,  Father 
Anasthase  Douay  missed  the  wallet  in  which  he  car- 
ried his  breviary  and  a  little  manuscript,  his  faithful 
journal  of  all  that  had  occurred  during  the  expedition. 
The  loss  wasjrreparable  to  him  ;  he  was  inconsolable, 
and  in  the  excitement  of  his  grief  attributed  the  theft  to 
an  Indian  who  had  travelled  in  the  same  boat  with  him, 
and  who,  he  declared,  never  took  his  eyes  off  the  wallet 
when  he,  the  priest,  took  out  his  breviary  to  read  his 
prayers.  The  next  day,  the  Feast  of  the  Annunciation,  it 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  63 

was,  when  the  officers  went  to  the  Indian  village.  Father 
Anasthase  accompanied  them,  in  search  of  his  property, 
and  laid  a  complaint  before  the  chief  that  one  of  his 
tribe  had  stolen  it.  The  village  was  instantly  called  to- 
gether and  the  accusation  stated,  the  reverend  father 
standing  by,  weeping  bitterly,  —  hoping  thus,  the  savage 
conscience  proving  invulnerable,  to  touch  the  savage 
heart.  The  Indians  were,  or  appeared  to  be,  so  discon- 
certed that  they  could  not  answer  when  the  chief  asked 
them  if  any  one  had  seen  the  wallet.  The  priest  then 
visited  every  cabin,  in  tears  and  despair,  until  the  In- 
dians, growing  more  and  more  offended,  began  to  be 
threatening,  when  the  French  had  the  priest  conducted 
to  the  barges  and  left  there.  But  the  entente  cor- 
diale,  once  broken,  could  not  be  resumed.  The  old 
women  stopped  pounding  corn,  the  messengers  returned 
with  the  supplies  of  provisions  they  were  taking  to  the 
boats.  The  forms  of  amity  were  indeed  preserved,  but 
no  assistance  or  hospitality  was  further  offered  or  yielded. 
Bienville  bought  T_oji^'s_JeltejL.fjaJi-ja_J^tdiet  from  the 
Mongoulacha  chief.  The  suspicious  savage  explained 
that  he  had  concealed  it,  fearing  the  French  might  be 
Spaniards.  He  now  produced,  in  addition,  an  "  Imita- 
tion of  Christ,"  some  pictures,  and  a  gun  which  he  said 
the  Iron  Hand  had  also  given  him. 

One  can  fancy  the  eagerness  with  which  the  precious 
document  was  opened  and  read,  and  the  expressions  of 
disgust  and  impatience  which  fell  from  all  lips  at  its 
tardy  appearance  amid  the  doubts  and  misgivings  which 
it  so  easily  and  clearly  solved.  Besides  settling  the 
fact  that  the  Mississippi  was  the  Mississippi,  it  explained 
away  one  at  least  of  Iberville's  perplexities.  It  was 


64  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE    MOYNE, 

dated  from  the  village  of  the  Quinipissas,  showing  that 
the  Mongoulachas  and  Bayagoulas,  for  their  own  pur- 
poses, had  either  deceived  him,  or  were  deceiving  Iber- 
ville's  party  by  giving  a  false  name  to  their  village. 

Hearing,  Tonty  wrote,  that  La  Salle  had  lost  a  ship  in 
his  expedition  in  search  of  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and 
that  the  savages  were  plundering  him,  and  fearing  that 
he  was  in  open  warfare  with  them,  he,  Tonty,  with 
twenty-five  men,  had  descended  to  the  mouth  of  the 
river  to  assist  him.  All  the  Indians  met,  going  and 
coming,  had  shown  themselves  friendly  ;  but  although  he 
had  explored  the  Gulf  twenty-five  miles  on  each  side 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  he  had  discovered  no  trace  of 
his  friend.  He  had  found  the  cross  bearing  the  arms  of 
the  king,  erected  by  La  Salle  eight  years  before,  lying 
half  buried  in  the  sand,  and  he  had  set  it  up  again, 
seven  leagues  higher  up  the  river.  Upon  a  tree  standing 
near  the  cross  he  had  fixed  a  sign,  and  in  the  hollow  of 
it  he  had  placed  a  letter,  addressed  "  A  M.  de  La  Salle, 
Gouverneur-Gene'ral  de  la  Louisiane."  * 

Bienville  also  bought  from  the  Mongoulacha  chief,  for 
a  gun  and  some  ammunition,  a  little  boy,  who,  Sauvole 
says,  cried  bitterly  at  parting  from  his  people. 

1  It  should  be  explained  that  the  Mississippi  itself  is  responsi- 
ble for  some  of  the  errors  attributed  to  the  Relations,  and  also  for 
much  of  La  Salle's  mystification  on  the  coast  of  Texas.  When 
he  descended  and  ascended  the  river  it  was  flood-high,  which  so 
changed  the  topography  of  its  banks  and  its  mouth  that  Tonty, 
in  his  later  trip,  almost  failed  to  recognize  them.  Iberville  also 
met  a  man  afterwards  who  knew  the  river  well,  and  who  was 
with  Tonty  among  the  Quinipissas.  He  assured  Iberville  that 
the  chief  of  the  Quinipissas  was  also  chief  of  the  Mongoulachas, 
and  that  they  were  established  twenty  leagues  lower  down  the 
river. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  65 

The  restored  sailors  recounted  their  wanderings  and 
sufferings  to  a  sympathetic  and  interested  audience. 
They  had  found  their  way  to  the  river,  and  were  trying 
to  ascend  the  banks  of  it,  in  the  hope  of  catching  up  with 
the  boats,  when,  at  the  last  extremity  of  fatigue  and  starva- 
tion, they  were  rescued  by  some  Indians,  who,  minister- 
ing to  them  in  their  exhausted  condition,  in  their  kind- 
ness conveyed  them  to  the  Bayougoulas,  offering,  in  case 
they  could  not  find  their  companions,  to  take  them  in 
pirogues  to  their  vessels  at  Ship  Island. 

Making  from  twelve  to  nineteen  leagues  a  day,  the 
barges  soon  reached  the  passes.  One  of  them  —  evi- 
dently the  Passe  a  Sauvole  —  was,  by  Iberville's  com- 
mands, explored  and  sounded.  In  a  reversed  order,  the 
first  experiences  and  sufferings  in  the  Delta  were  gone 
through,  —  minus,  however,  the  terrific  storm  ;  and  the 
barges  drew  up  alongside  their  ships,  their  work  done, 
just  one  month  and  two  weeks  after  starting  out,  and  just 
eight  hours  after  the  arrival  of  Iberville.  The  command- 
er's voyage  had  not  been  a  light  one.  The  Ascantia 
proved  to  be  about  ten  feet  wide  and  three  or  four  deep, 
and  very  much  obstructed.  During  the  first  day,  he  had 
travelled  seven  leagues,  and  made  fifty  portages  over 
fallen  trees  and  drifted  rafts.  The  country  was  one  of 
the  finest  he  had  ever  seen,  rich  earth,  fine  forests,  and 
no  canebrakes,  but  overflowing  five  or  six  feet  in  high 
water.  The  river  was  filled  with  fish  and  crocodile,  and 
wild  turkeys  in  quantities  had  been  heard,  although  there 
had  been  no  success  in  killing  any.  On  the  second 
day  the  guide  deserted ;  but  he  determined  to  continue 
without  him,  certain,  if  he  returned  to  the  Mississippi, 
that  he  could  not  overtake  the  barges,  and  wishing  to 

5 


66  JEAN  BAPTISTE    LE  MOYAfE, 

show  the  Indians  that  he  could  go  where  he  chose,  — 
confident,  at  all  events,  of  reaching  his  ships,  even  if  he 
were  forced  to  abandon  the  pirogues  he  had,  travel  by 
land,  and  make  other  pirogues  as  he  needed  them. 
One  of  the  Canadians  fell  ill,  and  Iberville  had  to  re- 
place him  at  the  portages,  carrying  one  end  of  a  pirogue, 
which,  he  says,  fatigued  him  greatly.  In  all,  he  made 
eighty  portages  during  the  journey.  The  Ascantia  was 
re-named  the  Iberville  ;  the  first  lake  they  came  to,  a 
pretty  oval  sheet  of  water,  six  leagues  by  four,  was 
named  after  the  young  principal  of  the  expedition,  the 
Count  of  Mauxopas ;  the  second  after  his  father,  Pont- 
chartrain,  the  Minister  of  Marine. 

There  was  no  time  for  explorations  or  soundings,  only 
for  such  observations  as  a  forced  march  permitted ;  but 
taken  as  they  were  by  an  eye  born  and  trained  to  accu- 
racy, they  stand  to-day,  in  Iberville's  official  report,  a 
fair  description  of  the  region.  Camping  at  night  on  the 
low  grassy  points  or  islands  around  the  lakes,  he  made 
acquaintance  with  those  pests  of  succeeding  generations 
of  hunters  and  fishermen,  the  insatiable  lake-shore  mos- 
quitoes, —  "  terrible  little  animals,"  he  says,  "  to  men  in 
need  of  rest."  His  record  of  seven  to  twelve  leagues  a 
day,  —  a  pretty  good  record  for  the  character  of  the  coun- 
try traversed,  —  soon  brought  him  to  the  shore  opposite 
his  ships.  The  weather  was  cloudy  and  windy.  He 
kindled  a  great  fire  to  attract  the  attention  of  his  ships, 
that  boats  might  be  sent  next  clay,  in  case  the  lake 
proved  too  rough  for  crossing  in  pirogues.  The  mor- 
ning was  clear,  however,  the  water  calm.  Me  set  out  in 
the  pirogues,  and  was  more  than  half  way  over  to  Ship 
Island  when  he  met  the  barges  coming  to  investigate 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  6j 

* 
the  cause  of  the  fire  of  the  night  before.     He  arrived 

on  board  the  "  Badine  "  at  midday,  —  eight  hours,  as 
has  been  said,  before  his  barges  from  the  Mississippi. 

Speaking  of  the  Tonty  letter,  he  remarked  character- 
istically, that  he  was  sorry  he  was  not  in  the  party  which 
descended  the  river  with  it,  for  he  should  have  found 
the  tree  in  which  Tonty  had  deposited  the  other  letter. 
He  says  he  could  easily  have  done  so,  as  there  were 
very  few  trees  eight  leagues  from  the  mouth  of  the  river, 
and  those  few  only  on  the  left-hand  side  ascending. 

Sauvole  reported  that  he  had  discovered  one  spot 
oii  the  river-lands  which  did  not  overflow.  It  was  upon 
the  left  bank  descending,  about  twenty-five  leagues 
above  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  a  league  more  or 
less  inward. 


68  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER  VI. 

INSTEAD  of  searching  for  Sauvole's  one  point  of  high 
land  upon  the  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  and  making  his 
establishment  at  once  where  Bienville  was  forced  to 
make  it  later,  after  fifteen  years  of  costly  and  painful 
experimentation,  Iberville,  pressed  by  time  and  dimin- 
ishing provisions,  cast  his  eye  around  for  a  situation 
nearer  at  hand.  It  was  vitally  necessary  for  him  to 
make  his  establishment  at  once,  on  account  of  failing 
supplies,  and  as  near  to  his  ships  as  possible.  The 
mouth  of  the  Pascagoula  River,  with  its  easy  inland  com- 
munication, was  obviously  the  first  choice  ;  but  it  had 
been  surveyed  during  the  expedition  by  Iberville's  or- 
ders, and  there  was  no  depth  of  water  in  it.  The  little 
bay  of  Biloxi,  with  its  island  shelter,  offered  the  next 
best  conditions  of  harbourage  proximity  to  the  fleet 
and  to  the  villages  of  the  Biloxis,  Pascagoulas,  and  Moc- 
tobys,  from  which,  at  need,  assistance  might  be  drawn. 
Iberville,  within  a  few  hours  after  his  return  from  his 
arduous  journey,  with  all  his  fatigues  upon  him,  de- 
spatched the  felucca  to  this  point  to  investigate  the 
practicability  of  reaching  it  in  the  transports.  An  un- 
favourable answer  was  brought  the  next  morning.  Tak- 
ing the  felucca  then  himself,  Iberville  sailed  back  to  the 
lakes  he  had  just  traversed,  to  see  what  they  might 
offer.  The  following  night  he  returned,  about  ten 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  69 

o'clock,  having  lost  his  bearings  again  and  again  in  the 
darkness  and  in  the  heavy  sea,  which  every  moment 
all  but  swamped  him,  and  in  a  tide  that  had  already 
carried  him  beyond  the  islands,  and  was  carrying  him 
out  to  sea,  when  the  lights  in  the  ships'  masts  rescued 
him.  While  he  had  found  on  Pontchartrain  and  Mau- 
repas  good  situations  for  a  fort  and  sufficient  depth  of 
water  for  the  transports,  the  distance  from  the  fleet  and 
from  the  Mississippi  would  make  them  acceptable  only 
as  a  last  resource.  The  statement  of  an  officer  of  the 
"  Marin  "  contradicting  the  low  depth  of  water  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Pascagoula  was  sufficient  to  induce  him  to 
proceed  there  at  once  with  men,  implements,  and  mate- 
rials for  work.  But  after  two  hours'  sounding,  he  found 
not  only  a  uselessly  meagre  channel  through  intervening 
sand-bars,  but  an  oyster-bank  which  blocked  the  mouth 
of  the  river.  There  seemed  nothing  for  it  but  to  make 
the  establishment  on  Lake  Pontchartrain,  with  all  the 
foreseen  drawbacks  of  tedious  transportation  from  the 
ships,  and  without  the  reinforcement  of  workmen  which 
otherwise  could  have  been  drawn  from  the  crews.  Bien- 
ville,  who  had  accompanied  the  felucca,  as  usual,  in  his 
pirogue,  was  sent  back  to  the  fleet  with  the  discouraging 
news. 

In  passing  Biloxi,  on  his  way  from  Pascagoula, 
the  indefatigable  commander  made  one  more  trial  of 
sounding  with  his  own  hand.  The  proverbial  reward  to 
the  eye  of  the  master  ensued.  A  seven-foot  deep  chan- 
nel was  found,  which  led  to  a  snug  little  harbour  between 
the  mainland  and  the  island,  which  was  a  complete  cloak 
against  the  south  wind.  Following  the  terraced-looking, 
oak-grown  shore  around  its  curve,  a  diminutive  bay 


70  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

opened  to  Iberville's  view.  He  made  the  tour  of  it 
in  his  pirogue,  and  that  night  slept  on  the  spot  he  had 
selected  for  his  fort,  which  was  at  least  to  serve  his 
purpose  until  a  more  advantageous  position  could  be 
selected,  under  less  stringent  circumstances. 

A  railroad  trestle  now  spans  the  deep  embrasured 
little  recess,  and  the  eye  of  the  speeding  passenger  can 
note  on  the  eastern  side  the  eminence  upon  which 
Iberville  camped  nearly  two  centuries  ago.  Now,  as 
then,  guns,  planted  upon  it,  would  sweep  three  fourths 
of  the  limited  horizon,  arbitrarily  commanding  the  chan- 
nel in  all  its  length  and  breadth.  The  channel  now  is 
ever  white  with  sails  of  business  or  pleasure  boats,  and 
the  fanciful  gaudiness  of  summer  villas  studs  the  sombre, 
heavily-wooded  beach.  Opposite  the  island,  under  the 
wide-spreading  branches  of  the  great  daks  where  once  the 
fishing  and  hunting  parties  of  Indians  lighted  their  fires 
and  swung  their  caldrons,  a  quaint  assemblage  of  French 
and  Spanish  houses  form  a  town,  —  a  town  picturesque 
and  redolent  of  an  indefinable  charm,  despite  the  sordid 
vulgarities  of  competing  summer-resort  hotels.  The  eye 
must  be  churlish  indeed  that  does  not  brighten  at  the 
recollection  of  the  panorama  of  the  passing  hours  there, 
from  the  time  the  sun  first  rises,  to  set  in  motion  the 
grand  phantasmagory  of  cloud  and  water  transmuta- 
tions, until  it  drops,  oppressive  with  tropical  splendour, 
into  a  sea  glorified  to  receive  it,  out  of  which  the 
moon  rises,  or  has  risen,  to  plate  mainland  and  open 
sea,  the  town,  island,  anchored  boats,  and  rippling  water, 
in  one  silvery  sheen  ;  or.  when  the  moon  does  not 
rise,  when  the  stars  shine  out  and,  increasing  in  size 
and  brilliancy,  seem  to  descend  lower  and  lower 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENV2LLE.  /I 

to  the  earth,  the  water  striking  back  rival  and  scin- 
tillating reflections,  until  the  constellations  seem  to 
form  kinships  with  the  lights  of  the  town  and  with 
the  lamps  swinging  in  the  dim  cordage  over  invisible 
hulks. 

The  eight-mile  stretch  of  island  in  front  —  a  weanling 
from  the  mainland,  according  to  tradition  —  has  lost  the 
game  which  still  gives  it  its  name  and  its  beauty,  if  it  ever 
had  any.  It  holds  a  thinning  forest  growth,  —  a  wind- 
riven,  wind-shaken,  weirdly  ugly  race  of  stunted  oaks,  dis- 
located and  distorted  by  their  sharp  cyclonic  struggles ; 
some  of  them,  old  and  wizen,  still  crouching  from  the 
blast  that  felled  them  in  tender  youth ;  some,  prone 
upon  the  ground,  whence  their  branches  have  grown 
upright  into  stout  trees ;  all  of  them  tied  and  gnarled 
together,  like  forlorn  hopes,  by  vines  as  wrinkled  and 
sinewy  as  themselves,  all  of  them  hoar  with  a  moss  that 
had  never  been  otherwise  than  whipped  to  raggedness 
by  the  wind. 

Trees  were  cut,  a  space  was  cleared,  and  the  plan  of 
the  fort  laid  out.  But  the  impatient  Iberville  com- 
plained that  the  work  went  slowly  :  few  of  the  men 
were  good  woodsmen  ;  some  of  them  took  a  day  to 
cut  a  tree  ;  but  he  acknowledged  that  the  trees  were  of 
prodigious  size,  and  of  the  hardest  oak  and  nut  woods ; 
a  forge  had  to  be  constructed  to  mend  the  axes  which 
were  broken  constantly  upon  them.  Large  draughts  of 
workmen  were  supplied  from  the  crews  of  the  ships, 
between  which  and  the  fort  the  barges  and  small  boats 
plied  incessantly,  landing  the  guns,  ammunition,  pro- 
visions, and  live-stock,  and  ferrying  the  details  of  men 
back  and  forth  over  the  twenty  five  miles  of  separation. 


72  JEAN  BAPTISTE  ^E  MOYNE, 

The  logs  for  the  bastions,  and  posts  for  the  stockade 
were  cut  a  half  league  away,  and  boated  a  hundred  at  a 
time  to  the  fort.  For  two  days  twenty-five  men  were 
kept  busy  sowing  corn  and  peas.  The  officers  mul- 
tiplied themselves  to  meet  their  double  duties  on  sea 
and  land.  Even  Father  Anasthase  had  to  prepare  for 
Easter  ubiquitously  ;  confessing  the  ships  and  then  con- 
fessing the  fort,  celebrating  the  Communion  here,  then 
hurrying  away  to  celebrate  it  there,  on  one  of  his 
journeys  coming  within  two  fingers  of  sinking  to  the 
bottom,  a  storm  striking  the  barge,  heavily  laden  with 
cannon-balls,  the  lake  rising  in  billows,  and  the  rain 
pouring  down  in  such  torrents  as  to  render  the  lake 
fresh  for  eight  days  afterwards. 

In  the  thick  of  the  work  five  Spanish  deserters  arrived 
from  Pensacola  on  their  way  to  Mexico.  They  brought 
a  sad  tale  of  the  mortality  from  starvation  and  disease 
they  had  left  behind  them.  •  The  commandant  had  hur- 
ried away  to  Vera  Cruz  with  the  news  of  the  designs  of 
the  French  upon  the  coast,  leaving  his  garrison  in  dire 
want  of  every  necessity  ;  all  who  could,  were  deserting. 

The  Spaniards  were  so  full  of  betrayal  to  their  late 
masters,  and  so  eager  for  enterprise,  they  painted  the 
beauty  and  richness  of  the  Mexican  mines,  the  supine- 
ness  of  the  Spaniards,  the  easy  distance  to  San  Luis 
Potosi,  the  facilities  for  capturing  the  periodical 
silver  caravels,  and  their  own  ability  to  conduct  the 
French  thither,  in  such  glowing  language  that  even 
the  practical  Iberville  was  fired  with  enthusiasm.  He 
kept  the  deserters  to  take  back  with  him  to  France 
for  future  reference  and  use,  and  in  his  official  journal 
to  the  minister  reckoned  that  with  five  hundred  Cana- 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  73 

dians  (he  never  reckons  with  Frenchmen),  he  could 
hold  in  terror  the  whole  Spanish  territory. 

The  necessity  of  relieving  the  pressure  upon  the 
supplies  pushed  the  fort  to  a  hasty  completion.  Two 
of  the  bastions  were  built  of  logs  two  and  a  half  feet 
thick  ;  the  other  two  were  of  stockade.  It  was  sur- 
mounted by  a  parapet  four  feet  high,  armed  with  twelve 
cannon,  and  liberally  equipped  with  men  and  ammu- 
nition ;  but  the  lodgings  and  magazines  were  yet 
unfinished  when  Iberville  and  Surgeres  took  their 
departure,  carrying  with  them  only  the  bare  crew  and 
provisions  necessary  to  get  to  France. 

The  young  lieutenant  of  the  "Marin,"  Sauvole,L-vras 
lejQ:  in  command,  —  "a  young  man,"  Iberville  writes, 

1  This  Sauvole,  sometimes  called  the  first  governor  of  Loui- 
siana, is  often  identified,  and  by  good  authorities,  with  a 
Fran9ois  Marie  le  Moyne,  Sieur  de  Sauvole,  a  brother  of  Iber- 
ville and  Bienville,  of  whom,  beyond  the  fact  of  his  birth,  very 
little  is  authentically  known.  None  of  the  official  documents 
connected  with  the  early  history  of  Louisiana  mention  him  as 
the  brother  of  Iberville  and  Bienville.  M.  Pierre  Margry,  in 
his  able  introduction  to  the  sixth  volume  of  his  "  Decouvertes  et 
Documents  historiques,"  introduces  him  briefly  and  simply  as 
"parent  de  M.  Polastron,  commandant  de  St.  Malo."  Sauvole 
in  his  Relation  never  insinuates  that  he  was  a  Le  Moyne  and 
brother  to  his  commander-in-chief ;  on  the  contrary,  in  this  frag- 
mentary document  there  is  evinced  a  marked  prejudice  against 
Canadians,  and  no  admiration,  in  speaking  of  Iberville  and  Bien- 
ville. Iberville,  who  is  most  careful  always  to  note  "  My  brother 
De  Bienville,"  calls  him  only  the  Sieur  de  Sauvole,  with  the 
above  laconic  commendations;  and  finally,  De  Bienville,  who, 
during  the  course  of  his  long  life,  more  than  once  recalls  his  ser- 
vices and  losses,  and  those  of  his  family,  to  the  Government,  in 
order  to  stimulate  the  generosity  of  a  minister,  does  not  include 
this  very  creditable  career  in  his  account. 


74  JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE   MOYNE, 

"  of  merit  and  capable."  Bienville  was  advanced  to 
Sauvole's  position  of  "lieutenant  of  the  king,"  and 
Levasseur  Russouelle,  the  Canadian,  to  that  of  sergeant- 
major.  Father  Anasthase,  satisfied,  and  perhaps  more 
tnan  satisfied,  with  discoveries  of  the  Mississippi,  par- 
ticularly by  Canadians,  demanded  to  be  taken  back  to 
France  to  enter  his  convent,  which,  he  said,  he  never 
wished  to  leave  again.  Iberville  installed  the  almoner 
of  the  "  Badine,"  M.  Bordenave,  in  his  place,  —  "a 
very  honest  man,"  he  says  ;  but  he  bluffly  regrets  not 
having  a  Jesuit  missionary  to  leave,  "  who,"  he  says, 
"  would  have  learned  the  language  of  the  Indians  in 
a  very  short  while."  On  the  2d  of  May,  Iberville  and 
Surgeres,  with  the  last  detail  of  men,  withdrew  from  the 
fort  ;  on  the  third,  a  Sunday,  they  sailed  from  Ship 
Island.  They  arrived  in  France  during  the  latter  part 
of  June. 

Sauvole  applied  himself  with  serious  conscientious- 
ness to  the  administration  of  his  small  government.  He 
had  mass  celebrated  every  morning  as  regularly  as 
aboard  ship,  and,  he  notes,  Bienville  and  Levasseur  at- 
tended it,  setting  a  very  good  example  to  the  men. 
Work  on  the  unfinished  buildings  was  prosecuted  with 
vigour  ;  while  to  promote  and  maintain  the  discipline  so 
necessary  in  a  small  military  establishment  he  put  him- 
self to  studying  the  characters  and  dispositions  of  his 
men,  —  a  rather  hopeless  pursuit  when  applied  to  the 
men  he  had  to  do  with. 

There  is  no  trace  of  the  hardy  Canadian  optimism 
of  his  predecessor  in  the  elegantly  written  journal  of 
the  young  Frenchman.  It  begins,  indeed,  hopefully 
enough  ;  but  it  soon  dwindles  away  botli  in  volume  and 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  75 

spirit,  ending  with  detached  entries  penned  with  the 
listless  indifference  that  betrays  climatic  enervation. 

The  seed  sowed  by  Iberville,  which  sprouted  so 
promptly,  and  from  which  such  wonders  were  expected, 
soon  withered  under  the  hot  sun,  in  the  prolonged 
drought  which  came  to  afflict  them,  —  a  drought  during 
which  even  the  swamps  dried  up.  Water  became  so 
scarce  that  had  it  not  been  for  the  discovery  of  a  spring 
a  league  and  a  half  from  the  fort,  great  suffering  would 
have  ensued.  Provisions  grew  so  scarce  that  a  famine 
also  would  have  set  in,  were  it  not  for  the  arrival  of  the 
transport  which,  by  Iberville's  injunctions,  had  been 
sent  to  St.  Domingo  for  supplies.  The  uncanny  shapes 
of  alligators  met  the  eye  at  every  moment,  —  they  were 
killed  at  the  very  foot  of  the  fort ;  and  a  rattlesnake  paid 
his  respects  by  stinging  one  of  Sauvole's  dogs,  which 
died  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  after  swelling  so  greatly 
that  he  could  not  move  from  the  spot.  The  soil 
was  found  ungrateful,  nothing  but  burning  sand,  in 
which  innumerably  fruitless  sowings  were  made.  Before 
attention  was  called  to  it,  the  boats  in  the  water  were 
seriously  damaged  by  worms ;  the  very  trees  in  the 
forest  were  worm-eaten  as  they  stood.  In  the  hot 
weather  the  men  could  only  work  two  hours  morning 
and  evening,  and  most  of  them  were  attacked  with 
dysentery,  from  drinking  bad  water.  As  for  their  other 
beverage,  brandy,  Sauvole  can  only  speak  of  it  with 
bitterness  as  "  the  most  pernicious  of  drinks,  not  only 
on  account  of  the  health,  but  on  account  of  the  discus- 
sions and  quarrels  it  engenders.  It  ruins  the  body  and 
brutalizes  the  mind."  And  whatever  precautions  he 
could  take,  it  was  never  possible  for  him  to  make  the 


76  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

men  drink  their  ration  daily ;  they  would  hide  it  in 
secret  places  until  enough  accumulated  to  intoxicate. 
Wine  would  not  have  been  a  hundredth  part 'so  bad,  or 
beer,  had  he  possessed  the  ingredients  to  make  it.  With 
either  one  or  the  other  the  men  would  have  behaved 
better,  and  the  officers  been  spared  the  infliction  of  so 
much  punishment. 

On  the  ist  of  July,  two  pirogues  paddled  across  the 
bay  to  the  fort.  They  were  filled,  not  with  Indian 
visitors,  as  might  be  expected,  but  with  white  men,  — 
Canadians  and  two  Seminary  priests,  Fathers  Montigny 
and  Davion,  who  had  journeyed  down  the  river,  from 
their  distant  missions  among  the  Tensas  and  Tunicas,  to 
see  the  new  French  establishment,  of  which  the  Indians 
had  brought  them  rumours.  They  were  worn  out  with 
fatigue  and  from  their  intense  suffering  for  want  of 
drinking  water  during  the  ten  days  it  had  taken  them 
to  make  their  way  from  the  mouth  of  the  river  to  Biloxi. 
But  for  a  rain,  they  would  have  perished  of  thirst. 

They  were  received  with  all  the  cordiality  anticipated, 
and  their  spent  forces  refreshed  with  venison  broth, 
from  a  deer  providentially  found  by  the  hunters  the  day 
before  ;  but  it  was  before  the  arrival  of  the  transport 
of  provisions  from  St.  Domingo,  and  the  addition  of 
eighteen  men  was  a  serious  tax  on  the  supplies,  which 
had  been  measured  with  no  lavish  hand  to  carry  a  cer- 
tain number  of  mouths  to  a  certain  term ;  so  that  Sau- 
vole  was  forced  to  beg  his  guests  to  depart  after  nine 
days.  The  Canadians  acceded  unwillingly  enough  ;  but 
the  good  priests,  seeing  the  straits  to  which  their  host 
was  put  lor  their  entertainment,  did  their  best  to  com- 
mand their  turbulent  companions.  IVL  de  Montigny 


SIEUK  DE  BIENVILLE.  77 

wished  to  establish  himself  among  the  Natchez,  who,  he 
said,  were  the  most  numerous  and  respected  of  the 
Indians  along  the  Mississippi.  Sauvole  gave  him  presents 
with  which  to  ingratiate  himself  among  them,  — wine  and 
wafers  for  his  sacred  offices,  and  flour  for  himself. 

The  Indian  visitors  had  to  be  treated  with  more  cir- 
cumspection. Every  week  brought  a  deputation  from 
the  neighboring  tribes,  prompted  by  curiosity  and  greed, 
and  Sauvole,  according  to  his  instructions,  was  careful 
not  to  disappoint  them.  The  first  to  make  an  appear- 
ance was  their  old  acquaintance  Autobiscania,  the  Baya- 
goula  chief,  with  a  party  of  his  warriors.  They  were 
received  with  military  honours,  which  duly  terrified  them, 
as  was  intended ;  but  the  presents  reassured  them,  par- 
ticularly the  shirts,  which,  to  their  great  delight,  were 
fitted  upon  them.  They  looked  with  wonder  at  the 
fort,  beyond  measure  astonished  that  the  French  could 
get  together  and  pile  up  such  a  number  of  great  logs  in 
such  a  short  space  of  time.  All  went  well  until  the 
sentinel  came  at  nightfall  to  get  the  watchword  from 
the  sergeant.  The  whispering  threw  the  Indians  into  a 
state  of  serious  meditation  and  fears  of  treachery,  out 
of  which  Sauvole  had  to  calm  and  soothe  them. 

At  daylight,  they  confessed  that  their  wives  were  on 
the  other  side  of  the  bay,  and  they  would  also  like  to 
see  the  fort.  Permission  being  given,  the  savage  dames 
were  sent  for.  When  they  landed,  Autobiscania,  anx- 
ious that  the  show  should  be  equal  to  the  female  antici- 
pations, made  signs  to  prompt  Sauvole  to  put  his  men 
under  arms,  and  ran  himself  to  hunt  up  the  drummer. 
When  the  visit  terminated,  which  it  seems  to  have  done 
to  the  satisfaction  of  all  parties  concerned,  Sauvole  sent 


78  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

two  French  boys  along  with  the  Indians  to  learn  their 
language,  keeping  an  Indian  boy  with  him  to  learn 
French. 

Autobiscania  was  persuaded  to  remain  and  guide 
Bienville  to  the  Quinipissas.  The  wily  chief,  wishing 
to  retain  his  monopoly  of  friendship  with  the  French, 
hesitated  a  long  time  before  consenting,  alleging  a  fear 
that  the  Quinipissas  would  kill  the  white  men.  Bien- 
ville, carrying  presents  and  a  calumet,  remained  with 
the  Quinipissas,  or  Colapissis,  as  they  were  also  called, 
four  days,  during  which  time  a  friendship  was  cemented 
with  all  ceremony  on  both  sides.  But  the  return  visit 
to  the  fort  was  not  paid,  as  promised  by  them,  the 
Bayagoula  chief,  no  doubt,  sufficiently  intimidating 
them  to  prevent  it. 

In  answer  to  his  question,  the  Quinipissas  told  Bien- 
ville that  they  had  never  seen  nor  heard  of  La  Salle  or 
Tonty.  Bienville  then  visited  the  villages  of  the  Moc- 
tobys,  Biloxis,  and  Pascagoulas,  along  the  Pascagoula 
River,  eight  leagues  above  its  mouth.  Unfortunately  he 
kept  no  journal,  and  Sauvole  in  his  journal  gives  small 
and  unsatisfactory  extracts  from  the  report  rendered 
him.  The  three  villages  in  all  contained  not  more  than 
one  hundred  and  twenty  cabins,  and  counted  but  a 
hundred  warriors.  A  party  of  them  came  shortly  after- 
wards to  the  fort,  bringing  their  calumet  and  a  present 
of  deer-skins.  Sauvole  says  that  they  were  the  most 
polite  and  most  self-possessed  savages  he  had  seen. 

From  Pascagoula  River,  Bienville  went  to  Mobile  Bay, 
which  he  again  explored  and  sounded.  Then,  with 
eight  Canadians,  he  marched  by  land  to  Pensacola,  and 
made  a  thorough  reconnoissance  of  that  place,  and 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE,  79 

found  it  by  no  means  in  the  deserted,  abandoned  state 
which  the  deserters  reported,  and  which  Sauvole  in  his 
journal  so  frankly  desires. 

After  a  short  stay  in  Biloxi,  Bienville  set  out  again, 
on  the  23d  of  August,  with  two  pirogues,  five  men,  three 
Weeks'  provision,  and  a  stock  of  presents,  on  the  more 
important  enterprise  of  retracing  Iberville's  route  into 
the  Mississippi,  and  hunting  up  the  tribes  living  on  the 
banks  of  the  Ouacha  River  (Bayou  Plaquemines).  In 
three  days  he  reached  the  Iberville  River,  and  in  a  week 
was  at  the  Bayagoula  village,  which  he  found  in  a  great 
state  of  excitement  over  a  sudden  attack  of  the 
Houmas. 

Obtaining  a  guide,  he  proceeded  to  the  Quacha,  and 
paddled  up  it  twelve  leagues  to  the  Ouacha  landing.  The 
village  was  situated  a  quarter  of  a  league  inlands  But 
Bienville  met  here  Indians  of  a  different  temper  from 
any  encountered  hitherto  in  his  travels.  So  ferocious 
and  menacing  were  they  that  he  was  very  glad  to  beat  a 
retreat  to  his  pirogues,  where,  during  the  night,  they 
made  an  attempt  to  surprise  him.  The  village  was  com- 
posed of  three  tribes,  —  the  Ouachas,  the  Chouachas, 
and  the  Opelousas  ;  the  last  described  as  a  wandering 
tribe,  mostly  frequenting  the  Gulf  shores. 

Bienville  intended  following  the  Ouacha  to  its  exit 
into  the  Gulf,  had  there  been  such  an  exit ;  but,  as  the 
Indians  informed  him,  the  little  river  lost  itself  in  various 
inland  bayous  and  swamps,  most  of  which  dried  up  dur- 
ing the  summer.  He  therefore  returned  to  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  the  pirogues  had  rapidly  paddled  their  way 
down  stream  to  within  twenty-three  miles  above  the 
mouth,  where  they  were  arrested  by  a  most  startling 


80  JEAN  BAPTJSTE  LE  MOYNE, 

apparition.  A  corvette  lay  anchored  in  mid-stream  be- 
fore them.  Sauvole  gives  only  a  succinct  account  of 
what  followed.  Iberville,  in  his  report  to  the  Minister 
of  Marine,  enlarges  upon  it,  from  subsequent  interviews 
with  his  brother.  One  of  the  pirogues  was  sent  to 
speak  the  corvette.  It  proved  to  be  English.  Bien- 
ville  now  advanced  in  his  pirogue,  and  went  aboard. 
The  captain,  named  Banks,  turned  out  to  be  a  quondam 
prisoner  of  Iberville's,  captured  in  Hudson  Bay,  and 
consequently  an  acquaintance  of  Bienville's,  to  whom 
he  gave  all  the  information  desired  about  himself  and 
his  ship,  confessing  frankly  that  he  was  in  search  of  the 
Mississippi.  It  was,  at  last,  the  English  expedition  of 
which  Iberville  had  received  warning,  and  against  which 
he  had  held  himself  so  sedulously  on  the  alert.  This 
was  one  of  three  vessels,  loaded  with  emigrants, 
which  had,  in  truth,  set  sail  from  London  to  make  an 
establishment  upon  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  about 
the  very  time  in  October  that  Iberville  with  his  squadron 
sailed  from  Brest.  They  had  passed  the  winter  in  Car- 
olina, where  the  greater  number  of  the  colonists,  pleased 
with  the  climate,  had  chosen  to  remain.  In  May,  one 
ship  had  returned  to  England,  leaving  the  other  two  to 
pursue  the  object  of  the  expedition,  —  the  search  for 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  The  captain  said  they  had 
cruised  fruitlessly  for  thirty  leagues  round  about  where 
the  Relations  of  Tonty  and  Hennepin  had  placed  it. 
Returning  the  length  of  the  Gulf  coast,  he,  Captain 
Banks,  had  found  this  stream,  and  entered  it ;  and  as  it 
was  the  only  large  stream  he  had  discovered  in  his 
cruise  on  that  shore,  he  doubted  not  it  was  the  Mis- 
sissippi. Bienville,  the  Relations  say.  convinced  the  cap- 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  8 1 

tain  that  the  river  they  were  in,  and  all  the  surrounding 
country,  were  in  the  possession  of  the  king  of  France, 
who  had  force  sufficient  at  hand  to  protect  his  rights. 
Bienville  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the  captain  assent 
to  his  representations,  and  finally  raise  anchor  and  head 
the  corvette  down  stream.  The  "  English  Turn  "  in  the 
Mississippi  still  commemorates  the  bend  of  the  river 
where  the  young  lieutenant  and  his  five  Canadians  ob- 
tained this  triumph  over  the  Englishman.1  Bienville 
remained  on  the  corvette,  conversing  with  the  captain, 
and  having  sufficient  intercourse  with  another  personage 
aboard  to  attract  the  suspicious  distrust  of  the  English 
officers.  This  personage  had  made  himself  known  to 
the  young  Canadian  as  a  French  Protestant,  by  name 
Second,  an  engineer,  and  one  of  the  band  of  emigrants 
who  had  disembarked  in  the  English  king's  possession 
of  Carolina.  He  assured  Bienville  that  he  and  all  the 
French  refugees  with  him  wished  with  their  whole  hearts 
that  the  king  of  France  would  permit  them  to  establish 
themselves  in  Louisiana  under  his  domination ;  he  an- 

1  The  falsehood  usually  attributed  to  Bienville,  his  assurance 
to  Captain  Banks  that  the  river  he  was  on  was  not  the  Missis- 
sippi, which  lay  farther  to  the  east,  appears  to  be  an  afterthought 
of  the  captain's,  and  no  wise  an  improvement  upon  the  truth, 
certainly,  if  he  was  seeking  self-exculpation.  Daniel  Coxe,  the 
son  of  the  principal  of  the  expedition,  and  the  claimant  of  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi,  does  not  mention  it  in  his  account  of 
the  transaction  in  his  "  Carolana,"  and  it  is  not  mentioned  by 
Sauvole,  Pennicaut,  or  by  Iberville,  to  whom  it  would  have  been 
quite  a  natural  and  justifiable  method  of  procedure  with  an 
enemy.  It  is  first  met  in  French  in  the  journal  of  La  Harpe, 
who  came  to  Louisiana  only  in  1718,  and  he  evidently  gives  it  to 
emphasize  the  gullibility  of  the  Englishman.  See  Thomassy, 
"Geologic  Pratique  de  la  Louisiane,"  p.  6. 

6 


82  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

swered  for  it  that  there  would  soon  be  a  numerous  colony 
of  them  settled,  that  they  were  unhappy  under  the  rule 
of  the  English,  who  were  not  congenial  to  the  French. 
He  begged  Bienville  to  take  charge  of  his  petition  to 
the  French  king,  giving  his  London  and  Carolina  ad- 
dress, that  the  answer  might  be  forwarded  to  him.  Sau- 
vole  does  not  mention  this  Protestant  episode,  but 
Iberrille  dwells  upon  it,  as  Bienville  apparently  dwelt 
upon  it  to  him,  as  one  would  repeat  an  advantageous 
proposition  which  as  a  business  man  one  wished,  but 
dared  not  advise. 

After  seeing  the  English  corvette  safe  out  of  the 
river,  the  captain  promising  and  threatening  to  return 
and  make  good  his  claim,  Bienville  paddled  up  the 
river  to  a  portage  through  which  he  cut  across  to  Lake 
Pontchartrain.  He  reached  Bijpxi  early  in  October. 

Coincidentally,  a  visit  from  some  Pascagoulas  who 
brought  with  them  a  Choctaw,  confirmed  the  seriousness 
of  the  English  determination  to  encroach  upon,  if  not 
take  possession  of,  the  southern  end  of  the  continent. 
The  Choctaw  (from  the  upper  Alabama  region)  related 
that  the  English  had  already  had  dealings  with  them, 
and  that  two  Englishmen  were  established  among  the 
Chickasaws  (in  the  upper  Mississippi  district).  This 
Davion  the  missionary  had  also  discovered,  the  English- 
men having  tried  to  buy  beaver-skins  from  the  French- 
men established  among  the  Tunicas,  and  even  making 
propositions  to  the  Indians  to  kill  the  missionary,  which 
they  refused  to  do. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  83 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AT  Biloxi,  a  fine  August  brought  the  trying  summer 
to  a  close,  and  an  early  autumn  put  an  end  to  the  illness 
and  discomfort  of  the  men,  —  at  least,  Sauvole  chronicles 
no  complaint.  The  winter  came  on,  terribly  cold,  the 
drinking-water  freezing  in  the  glasses.  A  new  century 
was  ushered  in,  whether  with  any  festivities  on  the  part 
of  the  little  garrison,  no  chronicle  is  made  ;  but  there  is 
mentioned  the  great  impatience  of  all  for  the  arrival  of 
Iberville,  due  daily.  A  boat  was  stationed  at  Ship 
Island  on  watch  for  him,  and  on  the  eve  of  Twelfth 
Night  the  firing  of  cannon  signalled  over  the  water  the 
good  announcement  to  the  waiting  ears. 

Sauvole  hastened  over  to  meet  his  commander  with  his 
report,  —  a  good  one,  despite  all  his  gloomy  forebodings  ; 
but  four  men  dead,  with  all  the  illness,  dissipation,  and 
privation.  Iberville  returned  with  him  to  the  fort,  where 
he  was  received  with  salvos  of  artillery  and  with  "  all 
possible  joy,"  as  the  loyal  Pennicaut  writes.  Iberville 
indeed  came  like  a  belated  Santa  Claus  to  his  colonial 
family.  To  Sauvole  and  Bienville  he  brought  the  royal 
commissions  of  their  new  rank,  insuring  to  the  latter  a 
pay  of  twelve  hundred  francs  per  annum.  For  the  colony 
there  were  supplies,  money,  and  reinforcements,  —  most 
notably,  as  he  no  doubt  would  have  ranked  them,  sixty 
Canadian  coureurs  Je  bois,  who  had  served  with  him 


84  JEAN  BAPTfSTE  LE  MOYNE, 

in  Hudson  Bay,  a  Jesuit  priest  to  replace  the  Re'collct 
father,  and  a  royal  commissary,  who  was-to  rank  second 
only  to  Sauvole.  There  accompanied  him  also  the  Sieur 
Le  Sueur,  a  geologist,  with  thirty  workmen,  who  came  to 
exploit  a  certain  fabulous  hill  of  green  earth  on  the 
upper  Mississippi ;  the  after-celebrated  Juchereau  de  St. 
Denis,  a  distinguished  Canadian  and  a  connection  of 
Iberville's  wife ;  the  Sieur  de  Boisbriant  also,  celebrated 
afterwards  in  the  annals  of  the  colony  ;  and  Antoine  Le 
Moyne  de  Chateauguay,  his  seventeen-year-old  brother. 

Iberville's  stay  at  Biloxi  was  only  long  enough  to 
select  sixty  men  and  make  his  preparations  for  another 
trip  up  the  Mississippi. 

Instead  of  risking  another  voyage  through  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi,  the  two  barges  and  three  pirogues 
were  carried  into  Lake  Pontchartrain  to  the  little  bayou,1 
about  four  miles  below  Iberville  Bayou  (Manchac),  which 
lead  to  the  short  portage  into  the  Mississippi,  shown  by 
the  guide  during  the  other  expedition.  The  barges  evi- 
dently could  not  get  through  the  sluggish  shallow  marsh 

1  A  glance  at  the  map  of  the  lower  Mississippi  will  show  the 
very  indefinite  character  of  such  a  geographical  indication.  It 
would  seem  that  the  little  bayou  in  question  and  the  short  port- 
age must  have  been  the  Bayou  St.  John  and  the  well-known  In- 
dian high  road  (which  would  now  lead  directly  through  New 
Orleans),  preferred  by  early  travellers  as  the  safest  and  surest 
way  into  the  Mississippi.  Dupratz  says  he  came  through  the 
Bayou  Schoupic,  and  that  the  deserted  village  of  the  Quinipissas 
was  on  the  bank  of  the  Bayou  St.  John.  Iberville  puts  this  vil- 
lage (as  seen  above)  a  league  and  a  half  above  his  portage. 
Above  or  below  Bayou  St.  John,  Schoupic,  or  Tigouyou,  or  any 
other  of  the  innumerable  bayous  of  the  region,  it  is  evident  that 
the  ground  traversed  was  in  or  very  near  the  present  limits  of 
New  Orleans. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  85 

stream.  They  were  left  in  the  lake,  and  Iberville  and 
Bienville  proceeded  in  their  pirogues.  Iberville  de- 
scribes the  portage  as  about  a  league  and  a  half  long,  one 
half  of  the  distance  knee-deep  in  mud  and  water,  the 
other  in  good  condition,  the  country  covered  partly  by  for- 
est7~partly  by  canebrake.  He  and  Bienville  visited  a  de- 
serted village  of  the  Quinipissas  about  a  league  and  a  half 
above  their  portage,  upon  a  spot  which  was  inundated 
very  little  or  not  at  all.  The  abandoned  fields  were  grown 
up  with  trees  already  two  feet  in  circumference.  Clear- 
ing a  little  space,  Iberville  made  the  first  planting  of 
sugar-cane  in  Louisiana ;  but  the  seed  brought  from  St. 
Domingo  was  sour  and  yellow,  and  so  came  to  nought. 

The  whole  month  of  January  was  consumed  in  looking 
for  a  site  for  the  proposed  fort.  There  seemed  none 
secure  from  overflow.  Bienville  was  sent  up  to  the 
Bayougoulas  to  learn  from  them  what  spots  on  the  lower 
bank  of  the  river  were  above  high-water  mark.  Iberville, 
rejoining  the  barges,  returned  to  his  vessels,  where  he 
waited  until  the  messenger  brought  word  that  Bienville 
was  coming  down  the  river  with  the  Bayagoula  chief, 
who  would  point  out  all  the  unoverflowed  spots  within 
fifteen  leagues  of  the  river's  mouth. 

The  transport  was  put  under  way,  and  during  a  truce 
of  the  winds,  safely  entered  the  river.  Three  days  after- 
wards, at  midnight,  the  two  brothers  met  on  a  point  of 
land  on  the  right  bank  (ascending)  eighteen  leagues 
from  the  mouth,  which,  the  Bayagoula  chief  assured 
them,  was  not  subject  to  inundation. 

It  was  indeed  one  of  the  most  attractive  points  in  the 
region.  An  edge  of  open  forest,  six  hundred  paces 
wide,  extended  along  the  river  bank  for  about  three 


86  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

leagues  below  them.     Two  leagues  above  was  a  forest  of 
cypress,  or  cedars  of  Lebanon,  as  Iberville  calls  them,  — 
the  very  wood  for  pirogues,  and  where  pirogue-making 
was  immediately  commenced.    Behind  was  an  extended 
view  of  prairie  land,  studded  with  clusters  of  trees. 

Work  was  begun  at  once  upon  the  fort,  planned  to  be 
a  stout  defence  in  case  of  emergency,  —  a  twenty-eight 
foot  square  log  building  two  stories  high,  machicolated. 
The  powder-magazine  was  elevated  five  feet  above  the 
ground,  and  well  banked  with  earth,  top  and  sides. 

About  the  middle  of  February,  —  an  exceedingly  cold 
February,  even  Iberville  remarks,  —  while  the  clearing, 
cutting,  and  building  were  in  busy  progress,  there  arrived 
of  an  afternoon  a  visitor  than  whom  no  one  on  the  con- 
tinent could  have  been  more  useful  or  more  welcome 
to  Iberville  ;  this  was  Henry  de  Tonty^  the  friend  and 
companion,  and  without  question  the  most  unselfish, 
loyal,  straightforward,  and  intelligent  pioneer  France 
ever  possessed  in  America.  He  had  heard  of  the  settle- 
ment at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  came  from  his  post 
on  the  Arkansas  to  make  proffer  of  his  services.  A  band 
of  Canadians,  loaded  with  peltry,  from  the  country  of  the 
Illinois  and  Tamaroas  accompanied  him,  attracted  by 
the  offers  which  Sauvole  had  disseminated  among  the 
Indians,  especially  to  catch  wandering  courcurs  de  bois 
and  attach  them  to  the  enterprise.  Iberville  immedi- 
ately engaged  them  in  his  service,  and  found  them  a  most 
providential  reinforcement,  as  there  was  considerable 
sickness  among  his  men,  not  a  few  dying  of  fevers  con- 
tracted at  St.  Domingo,  or  most  likely  upon  the  spot. 

Tonty  here  had  the  opportunity  to  discover  the  fraud- 
ulent manuscript  imposed  as  his  upon  Iberville,  and  also 


SIEUR  DE  B1ENV1LLE.  8/ 

to  rectify  some  of  the  latter's  apprehensions  gathered 
from  the  clerical  Relations. 

Iberville's  projects  up  the  Mississippi  included  an  ex- 
ploration of  Red  River,  whose  unknown  course  seemed 
to  offer  an  inlet  for  enterprise  against  the  Mexican  gold 
and  silver  mines  of  the  supine  Spaniards.  Tonty  agreeing 
to  accompany  him,  the  finishing  of  the  fort  was  left  to  the 
Canadian,  Sieur  de  Maltot,  and  they  set  out,  Bienville  in 
advancei  a  forerunner  to  prepare  ways  and  means. 

At  the  portage  of  the  Tigouyou  (called  for  a  short  in- 
terval Ravine  le  Sueur),  they  came  up  with  the  geologist 
laboriously  getting  his  men,  boats,  and  provisions  through 
from  the  lake  into  the  river  which  was  to  conduct  him  to 
the  chimerical  treasures  of  green  and  blue  earth  piled 
into  hills  in  the  country  whence  it  took  its  source.  Iber- 
ville  expresses  his  scepticism  of  this  as  well  as  the  other 
schemes  which  an  inherent  love  of  the  marvellous  seemed 
to  push  France  into  fathering. 

Arrived  at  the  village  of  the  Bayagoulas,  the  news 
of  the  English  arming  the  Chickasaws  was  confirmed. 
Iberville's  first  plan  was  for  Tonty,  on  his  return  to  the 
Illinois,  to  entrap  the  English  leaders  into  coming  among 
the  Tunicas,  with  the  bait  of  trading  with  them,  to  arrest 
them  and  hand  them  over  to  a  detail  of  Canadians,  who, 
it  is  presumed,  were  competent  to  deal  with  them.  But 
the  English  were  found  to  be  too  numerous  for  this 
stratagem  to  be  practically  successful,  and  Iberville  had 
to  console  himself  with  the  promised  determination  to 
arm  the  Choctaws  and  unite  all  the  Indians  south  of 
the  Chickasaws  in  a  solid  confederacy  for  the  French. 

He  had  little  difficulty  in  reconciling  the  Houmas  with 
the  Bayagoulas  and  inducing  the  former  to  return  the 


88  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE  MOYNE, 

prisoners  captured  in  so  high-handed  a  manner.  Speak- 
ing in  their  own  manner  to  them,  he  says  he  expressed 
great  grief  and  indignation  at  their  making  war  upon  the 
Bayagoulas,  after  the  alliance  so  solemnly  made  between 
them  all  the  year  before.  The  Houmas  demanded  that 
the  Bayagoulas  should  come  to  them  to  smoke  the 
calumet  of  peace,  fetching  presents  to  ransom  the  prison- 
ers, as  the  custom  was.  Iberville  offered  himself  as  proxy 
for  his  friends,  and  so  the  matter  was  concluded.  The 
Houma  village  was  reduced  to  half  of  the  population 
of  the  previous  year  by  an  epidemic  of  the  flux ;  but 
there  was  an  accession  to  it  of  a  band  of  forty  "  Little  " 
Tensas,  as  they  were  called,  —  a  volunteer  corps  to 
assist  the  Houmas  against  the  Bayagoulas.  These 
Little  Tensas  inhabited  generally  a  territory  about  three 
leagues  west  of  the  Houmas,  but  they  were  an  errant 
tribe  which  lived  entirely  upon  game.  It  was  some  of 
them  who,  the  year  before,  had  told  Iberville  about  Red_ 
River  and  the  number  of  tribes  living  along  its  course, 
professing  to  have  been  through  the  country  and  to 
know  it  well ;  and  it  had  been  Iberville's  intention  to 
secure  guides  from  them.  But  now,  do  what  he  could, 
he  could  induce  none  of  them  to  accompany  him  as  far 
as  the  Caddodaquios.  They  now  protested  that  Red 
River  was  rafted  and  completely  unnavigable,  and  that 
the  only  road  they  knew  to  the  Caddodaquios  and  Nat- 
chitoches,  the  only  one  they  ever  travelled,  was  by  land 
and  through  the  village  of  the  "  Big"  Tensas,  above  the 
Natchez.  Although  from  its  mouth  Red  River  ap- 
peared to  Iberville  to  be  easily  navigable,  he  did  not 
dare,  in  face  of  the  many  ramifications  ascribed  to  it, 
venture  in  it  without  a  guide.  He  determined  to  pro- 


SIEUR  DE  BIENV1LLE.  89 

ceed  to  the  Big  Tensas  village,  and  from  there,  journey 
overland  to  the  Caddodaquios  and  Natchitoches,  follow- 
ing Red  River,  if  he  then  desired  it,  on  his  return  to 
the  Mississippi,  in  pirogues  which  they  could  easily  con- 
struct by  the  way.  Giving  the  Houmas  a  half-bushel 
of  corn,  some  peas,  and  some  orange,  apple,  and  cotton 
seed  to  plant  (the  first  cotton-seed  planted  in  Louisiana), 
he  gathered  together  his  men,  scattered  hunting  over 
the  country,  and  sent  for  the  pirogues  waiting  for  him 
at  the  mouth  of  Red  River,  and  set  them  all  in  motion 
up  the  Mississippi  towards  the  Natchez  and  Tensas. 

The  great  stream  still  meandered  before  them,  twist- 
ing like  a  huge  paraph  over  the  country.  The  pirogues 
paddled  against  the  monotonous  yellow  currents  which 
offered  no  novelties  to  them,  except  the  ceaseless  de- 
struction and  reconstruction  of  a  monster  water-way  at 
work,  —  the  freshly  verdured  batture  formations  against 
one  bank,  the  caving  land  of  the  other,  with  its  half- 
submerged  forests  peering  above  the  thick  waters.  Slow 
collecting  rafts  filling  up  one  curve,  the  deflected  cur- 
rents hurrying  away  to  the  next  point  to  gnaw  out  an- 
other. From  time  to  time  a  patient  fisherman  would 
be  seen  crouched  on  his  little  moored  gunwale  catch- 
ing, when  luck  was  with  him,  catfish  and  minnows,  or 
carp  and  sardines,  as  Iberville  called  them.  Here,  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  leagues  from  the  sea,  they  came 
across  the  innocent  causes  of  Iberville's  tragic  perplexities 
and  of  the  apparent  priestly  mendacities  —  the  two  little 
half-league-large  islands  which  formed  the  three  branches 
or  forks  of  the  Relations,  but  placed  by  them  sixty-five 
leagues  farther  down. 

At  the  Natchez  landing,  eighteen  leagues  above  the 


90  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

Houmas,  a  messenger  was  sent  to  apprise  the  chief  or 
their  coming.  He  responded  by  sending  his  brother, 
escorted  by  twenty-five  men,  with  the  calumet  of  peace 
and  an  invitation  to  the  village.  Climbing  to  the  sum- 
mit of  the  steep  bluff,  then  covered  with  magnificent 
forest  trees,  Iberville  gazed  upon  the  beautiful  rural 
landscape  which  he  proposed  affixing  to  the  picturesque 
kingdom  of  France, —  a  landscape  upon  which  afterwards 
French  rapine  was  to  bring  a  washing  of  blood.  "  It  was 
a  country,"  he  says,  "  of  plains  and  prairies,  filled  with 
little  hills  and  groves  of  trees,  oaks  some  of  them,  with 
roads  intercrossing  from  village  to  village  and  from 
cabin  to  cabin,  —  a  country  resembling  France  not  a 
little." 

Half  way  to  the  village  the  chief  appeared,  cere- 
moniously advancing,  surrounded  by  his  body-guard, 
—  twenty  large,  well-made  men.  He  was  rather  a 
thin  man,  about  five  feet  three  or  four  inches  tall,  with 
an  intelligent  countenance,  and,  according  to  Iberville, 
he  was  the  most  absolute  Indian  monarch  he,  Iberville, 
had  ever  seen.  At  that  time  he  was  suffering  from  the 
flux  which  shortly  afterwards  killed  him. 

All  the  men  of  the  tribe  appeared  to  be  handsome 
and  well-made,  but  they  were  very  lazy,  —  very  civil, 
but  very  lazy. 

The  village  differed  from  the  other  villages  visited, 
only  in  being  handsomer  and  better  built.  The  cabin 
of  the  chief  stood  eminent  on  a  spacious  mound  ten 
feet  high ;  facing  it  was  the  temple  :  around,  in  an  oval, 
were  placed  the  cabins,  enclosing  a  handsome  open 
space.  A  small  running  stream  near  by  furnished  the 
water. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  91 

Iberville  found  a  letter  there  from  Montigny,  who  had 
returned  to  his  Tensas  mission  but  three  clays  before. 
The  priest  stated  that  he  had  visited  all  the  cabins  of 
the  Natchez,  about  four  hundred,  scattered  over  eight 
leagues  of  country,  along  the  course  of  the  creek,  and 
that  he  had  baptized  one  hundred  and  eighty  children, 
from  one  to  four  years  old. 

Iberville  presented  the  chief  with  a  gun  and  ammuni- 
tion, a  capote,  a  blanket,  and  the  usual  quantum  of 
hatchets,  knives,  beads,  and  small  articles  for  distribu- 
tion. The  chief  presented  the  French  officers  each  with 
a  small  white  cross  and  a  pearl,  which,  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  expectations  in  France  founded  upon  pearl 
fisheries  in  Louisiana.  Iberville  treats  with  rather  ungra- 
cious criticism.  He  remarks  that  the  Natchez  language 
was  very  different  from  the  Houma,  but  that  he  was  en- 
abled to  converse  with  the  chief  through  his  brother 
Bienville,  who  was  beginning  to  make  himself  understood 
in  Bayagoula,  Houma,  Chickasaw,  and  Colapissa. 

Leaving  Bienville  and  the  rest  of  the  party  at  the 
Natchez  to  get  and  pound  corn  for  the  expedition, 
Iberville  set  out  with  six  men  in  one  pirogue  for  the 
great  village  of  the  Tensas,  to  make  the  other  arrange- 
ments for  the  overland  journey.  A  day  and  a  half 
brought  him  to  the  Tensas  landing.  The  pirogue,  with 
two  men,  was  left  at  the  river,  while  Iberville  with  the 
other  four  struck  out  through  the  woods  in  search  of  the 
lake  where  they  were  to  find  pirogues  to  reach  the  vil 
lage.  But  the  guide  lost  his  way,  and  the  party,  having 
no  provisions  with  them,  passed  a  supperless  night  in 
the  woods.  In  the  morning  they  were  more  successful. 
They  discovered  the  lake  and  in  answer  to  their  gun- 


92  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

shots,  they  found  four  Indians  awaiting  them  with  a 
pirogue.  The  lake,  a  mere  curving  branch  of  water, 
cut  off,  at  a  distant  date,  through  some  caprice,  by  the 
Mississippi,  was  not  more  than  twelve  miles  long  to  a 
mile  and  a  half  wide.1  Paddling  through  two  leagues 
of  it,  they  reached  at  midday  the  village,  —  a  group  of 
about  a  hundred  and  twenty  cabins,  scattered  along  the 
shore,  extending  some  six  miles,  the  greater  number 
concentrated  towards  that  end  of  the  lake  which  ap- 
proached nearer  to  the  Mississippi,  and  opposite  a  small 
outlet,  along  which  also  were  built  some  cabins.  The 
tribe  at  one  time  had  been  very  numerous,  but  at  the 
time  of  Iberville's  visit,  like  all  the  Indian  tribes  he  men- 
tions, seemed  to  be  suffering  a  rapid  and  fatal  decrease, 
and  there  were  barely  three  hundred  warriors  left. 

The  missionary  Montigny,  fired  with  zeal  by  recent 
encouragement  from  his  savage  flock,  was,  with  his  two 
French  assistants,  busy  building  a  church  and  a  dwelling 
for  himself,  —  indulging,  no  doubt,  in  those  prophetic 
visions  of  the  nearing  dawn  of  Christianity,  which  must 
have  furnished  the  only  roseate  hue  to  the  future  horizon 
of  such  as  he.  But  like  too  many  of  such  visions,  this 
was  a  baseless  fabric,  to  be  destroyed  by  a  demonstra- 
tion of  barbaric  fanaticism  which  the  French  spectators 
relate' with  horror. 

1  The  relative  positions  of  Lake  Tensas  and  the  Mississippi 
River  furnish  Thomassy  ("  Geologic  Pratique  de  la  Louisiana  ") 
with  an  important  fact  in  favour  of  his  argument  on  the  gradual 
displacement  of  the  river  from  the  west  to  the  east.  In  Fran- 
quelin's  map  of  the  voyages  of  La  Salle,  1684,  Tensas  Lake  is  rep- 
resented as  communicating  directly  with  the  river.  In  1700, 
Iberville  found  it  one  league  to  the  west  of  the  river.  In  1859, 
Thomassy  placed  it  several  miles  to  the  west. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  93 

A  terrific  storm  broke  out  during  the  night.  Light- 
ning struck  the  old  temple,  setting  it  afire.  It  was  con- 
sumed entirely.  With  a  readiness  and  certainty  which 
would  have  done  credit  to  his  Christian  competitor,  the 
venerable  Indian  patriarch  who  performed  the  functions 
of  high  priest,  attributed  the  disaster  to  divine  wrath  be- 
cause, after  the  recent  demise  of  their  king,  the  Tensas, 
under  the  teachings  and  influence  of  the  French  priest, 
and  in  obedience  to  their  own  satisfaction,  had  omitted 
the  human  sacrifice  enjoined  by  their  religion.  It  was 
the  opportunity  of  all  others  to  crush  a  rival  and  restore 
a  supremacy.  Standing  by  the  flames,  raging  through 
the  elemental  chaos  of  rain,  wind,  thunder,  and  light- 
ning, the  savage  interpreter  of  divine  justice,  raising  his 
voice  to  a  dominating  distinctness,  called  repeatedly : 
"  Women  !  bring  your  children  and  offer  them  in  sacri- 
fice to  the  Great  Spirit  to  appease  him  !  "  Five  devotees 
responded,  and  five  pappooses,  strapped  in  their  swad- 
dling clothes,  were  thrown  into  the  heart  of  the  burning 
pile.  Even  in  their  primitive  intelligence,  this  was  re- 
garded as  the  supreme  effort  of  human  sacrifice,  and  the 
five  mothers  from  henceforth  were  sanctified  and  con- 
secrated in  the  community.  Proud  of  his  victory,  the 
old  priest  led  them  in  triumph  to  the  cabin  of  the  new 
king,  where  the  old  men  of  the  village  assembled  to  do 
them  honour,  praising,  caressing  them,  clothing  them  in 
white  mantles  woven  from  the  fibre  of  the  bark  of  the 
mulberry-tree,  and  fastening  long  plumes  in  their  hair. 
The  adulatory  attentions  continued  for  eight  days,  dur- 
ing which,  day  and  night,  they  sat  in  state  before  the 
king's  cabin,  maintaining  their  publicity  during  the  dark 
hours  by  singing  aloud,  and  every  afternoon  formed  the 


94  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

principal  feature  in  the  dedicatory  services  which  were 
to  change  the  cabin  into  a  temple.  Iberville,  who  had 
gone  to  the  Mississippi  to  meet  Bienville  and  his  party, 
and  so  had  missed  the  burning  of  the  temple,  returned 
in  time  for  the  dedicatory  ceremonies  which  took  the 
form  of  a  rude,  symbolical  representation  of  the  recent 
disaster  and  expiatory  sacrificial  act.  —  a  sacrificial  play, 
as  it  were. 

Every  afternoon  of  the  eight  days,  about  six  o'clock, 
three  youths,  about  twenty  years  of  age,  fetched  a  fagot 
apiece,  which  was  thrown  down  before  the  door  of  the 
new  temple.  The  temple-keeper,  an  old  man,  would 
pile  them  into  a  pyre,  and  going  into  the  temple,  would 
reappear  with  a  fagot  of  canes  lighted  from  the  sacred 
fire  within.  The  patriarchal  priest,  observing  from  a 
distance,  would  then  slowly  advance  with  a  solemn  step, 
chanting,  and  beating  an  accompaniment  with  a  stick 
upon  a  leathern  cushion  which  he  carried.  He  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  five  sacrificing  mothers,  bearing  bundles 
of  wet  moss.  As  the  procession  approached,  the  tem- 
ple-keeper applied  his  torch  to  the  fagot-heap.  The 
priest  led  the  way,  chanting  three  times  around  the 
blaze  ;  the  women  then  threw  themselves  upon  it,  and 
beat  it  out  with  their  bundles  of  wet  moss.  The  priest 
then  led  them  to  the  river,  where  they  bathed  in  public. 
Vanity  seems  to  have  grown  also  under  the  stimulant  of 
faith,  and  to  have  become  an  accessory,  if  not  before, 
after  the  fact ;  for  during  the  procession  around  the  fire, 
Iberville  detected  symptoms  of  levity,  and  desire  to 
laugh  and  talk  among  the  fair  postulants,  for  which  the 
old  priest  severely  reprimanded  them. 

A  pain  in  his  knee  that  disabled  Iberville  from  walk- 


SI  EUR   DE  BIENVILLE.  95 

ing,  vetoed  his  being  of  the  Red  River  expedition.  He 
confided  its  command  to  Bienville.  After  seeing  him 
start  off"  with  his  Ouachita  guide,  six  Tensas,  and  twenty 
Canadians,  he  made  his  preparations  to  return  to  the 
mouth  of  the  river.  Montigny,  with  his  attendants  and 
possessions,  accompanied  him.  Against  such  a  mani- 
festation of  diabolical  interference  and  such  a  revival  of 
pagan  zeal  and  enthusiasm  as  he  had  witnessed,  the 
missionary  felt  powerless  and  hopeless.  The  Indian 
medicine-man  had  completely  routed  him  and  his  hu- 
mane doctrines.  Among  the  Natchez,  weather  per- 
mitting, he  calculated  upon  a  more  grateful  harvest.  » 

The  Natchez  chief  lay  dying,  and  in  the  great  distress 
of  his  people,  Iberville  had  no  opportunity  for  consulta- 
tion about  the  stand  to  be  taken  against  the  English- 
inspired  Chickasaws.  But  Tonty,  who  did  not  take  his 
departure  until  they  reached  the  Houmas'  landing,  *was 
charged  with  presents  for  the  Tunicas  and  for  the 
Chickasaw  chief,  who  was  shortly  to  visit  the  Tunicas, 
and  who  was  to  be  made  to  understand  through  the 
Tunica  missionary,  Uavion,  that  the  French  were  a  fix- 
ture at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  that  it  would  be  not 
only  more  profitable  to  trade  with  them  than  with  the 
English,  but  that  in  case  of  a  hostile  attitude  by  the 
Chickasaws,  the  Indians  of  the  lower  country  would  be 
armed  with  guns  and  united  in  one  band  against  them. 
Iberville  made  a  short  stop  at  the  Bayagoula  village ; 
leaving  it  at  noon  one  day,  he  reached  the  fort  the 
next  evening  at  nine  o'clock,  his  bark  canoe  accomplish- 
ing the  distance,  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  miles,  in 
thirty-three  hours. 

The  work  upon  the    fort  had  advanced  but  slowly, 


96  JEAA'  KAPTfSTE  LE  MOYNE, 

most  of  the  men  having  been  and  being  ill ;  the  sowings 
of  corn  and  peas,  however,  had  come  up  finely.  The 
next  day  Iberville  visited  a  little  stream  which  ran  to  the 
rear  of  the  fort,  hoping  to  find  it  a  practicable  passage 
through  to  his  vessels  in  the  Sound.  He  sent  Sieur 
Duguay  with  three  men  in  a  canoe  to  explore  it,  while 
he  in  a  canoe  with  two  men  tried  a  portage  two  leagues 
above  the  fort,  on  which  he  had  also  ventured  some 
hope.  But  he  found  it  so  difficult  that  he  was  obliged 
to  give  it  up.  He  returned  to  the  fort  in  a  pretty  hot 
fever,  he  says.  The  fever,  continuing,  retained  him  in 
the  insalubrious  spot ;  and  in  fact  it  was  this  tropical  ill- 
ness, caused  by  over  exertion  and  exposure,  which  made 
the  breach  in  the  hardy  Canadian's  constitution  through 
which  death,  in  the  same  latitude,  finally  entered.  He 
sent  to  Sauvole  for  the  bulls,  cows,  calves,  hogs,  fowls, 
to  stock  the  new  establishment,  and  for  the  other  neces- 
sary provisions.  In  default  of  communicating  bayou  or 
portage,  he  chronicles  with  satisfaction  that  the  transport 
brought  them  from  Ship  Island  through  the  mouth  of 
the  river  safely  and  quickly  in  thirty-six  hours.  The 
transport  also  brought  a  budget  of  news  from  Biloxi  and 
Ship  Island. 

De  la  Riola,  the  governor  of  Pensacola,  to  impose 
upon  or  intimidate  the  French,  had  paid  a  visit  to  Ship 
Island  and  Biloxi  in  all  the  panoply  of  his  power,  in 
a  frigate  of  twenty-four  cannon  and  one  hundred  anci 
forty  men,  accompanied  by  a  smaller  vessel  of  six  can- 
non and  forty  men,  and  a  sloop  armed  with  six  swivel- 
guns  and  twenty  men.  He  had  come,  he  majestically 
informed  the  French  commander,  in  pursuance  of  the 
orders  of  the  Viceroy  of  Mexico,  to  drive  the  French 


SIEUK  DE  BIENVILLE.  97 

them  to  represent  merely  some  trading 
community ;  but  as  they  were,  on  the  contrary,  repre- 
sentatives of  a  crowned  head,  his  orders  were  not  to 
molest  them. 

Surgeres,  Sauvole,  the  officers,  and  men  proved  equal 
to  the  occasion.  The  ponderous  and  unwelcome  visitors 
were  received  with  honours,  and  regaled  with  a  gener- 
osity that  must  have  disappointed  as  well  as  astonished 
them.  No  Pensacola  revelations  of  weakness,  dissatis- 
faction, and  misery  took  place  at  Ship  Island  or  Biloxi. 
During  the  visit,  which  lasted  four  days,  the  garrison 
were  kept  in  gala  uniform  and  on  gala  rations.  Traces 
of  sickness  and  privation  were  sedulously  hidden ;  corn 
was  banished  from  sight ;  while  the  jealously  guarded 
stores  of  wine  and  flour  were  lavished  with  contemptu- 
ous prodigality.  Laughter  and  gayety  flowed  with  the 
ease  and  abundance  of  spontaneity  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest,  and  for  the  nonce  the  little  obscure  anchor- 
ages gave  a  sparkle  of  that  glitter  which  befitted  a  royal 
post  of  that  dazzling  splendour,  the  Sun-King. 

Despite  his  brilliant  entertainment,  however,  the 
Spanish  functionary,  in  taking  leave,  delivered  a  formal 
written  protest  against  the  establishment,  which  he  said 
the  French  had  made  in  the  possessions  of  the  king  of 
Spain,  contrary  to  the  good  understanding  which  existed 
between  the  two  Crowns ;  and  he  begged  the  French  to 
make  no  further  settlements  on  that  coast  until  he  had 
communicated  with  his  Spanish  Majesty,  which  he  pur- 
posed to  do  directly.  He  sailed  away  as  majestically  as 
he  had  arrived.  But  as  a  frugal  ancestor  of  the  Sun- 
King  was  fond  of  remarking,  "  Quand  orgueuil  marche 
devant,  dommage  marche  derriere." 

7 


98  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE   MOYNE, 

It  was  seven  days  later,  Surgeres  had  sailed  to 
France,  and  De  Ricouart,  left  in  command  of  Ship 
Island,  beheld  an  open  boat  approaching  from  the  sea. 
The  figures  of  men  in  distress  were  made  out  in  it.  It 
neared ;  it  landed ;  the  figures  were  the  late  guests, 

—  the   Spanish   commander    and  two   of    his   officers. 
Stripped  to  his  vest,  famishing  with  a  five  days'  hunger 
and  thirst  whetted  rather  than  assuaged  by  one  small 
bit  of  chocolate,   exhausted  with  five  days'  unremitted 
labour,  and  with  want  of  sleep  from  a  like  period  of 
combat  with  the  mosquitoes,  —  De  la  Riola  related  his 
pitiful  adventure.     A  gale  had  struck  his  fleet,  and  all 

—  frigate,  smaller  vessel,  and  sloop  —  had  been   ship- 
wrecked on  Chandeleur  Islands.     Everything,  even  to 
the  wardrobes  of  the  officers,  had  been  lost. 

Again  the  French  were  equal  to  the  occasion,  or,  as 
De  Ricouart  puts  it,  equal  to  the  requirements  of  the 
honour  of  France  upon  such  occasions.  Messengers 
were  despatched  with  the  news  to  Pensacola ;  boats 
were  sent  to  rescue  the  miserable  crews  perishing  on 
the  exposed  sand-bars.  Food,  drink,  and  clothes  were 
prepared,  and  De  la  Riola  Jiimself  was  equipped,  cap- 
a-pie,  from  the  wardrobe  of  Iberville.  Sauvole  im- 
mediately made  a  visit  of  condolence,  with  offers  of 
service  and  a  present  of  handsome  linen  and  a  gun. 
De  la  Riola  insisted  upon  departing  at  once  and  reliev- 
ing his  hosts  of  the  onerous  charge  of  his  entire  equipage. 
But  he  was  given  to  understand  that  he  did  the  French 
injustice  if  he  supposed  he  incommoded  them  in  the 
least,  and  he  was  so  pressed  to  remain  until  he  and  his 
men  were  completely  refreshed  and  rested,  that  he  con- 
sented. When  he  returned  to  Pensacola,  part  of  the 


SI  EUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  99 

crew  were  transported  in  French  boats,  and  all  were 
provided  with  three  weeks'  refreshment. 

At  the  fort,  Iberville's  fever  continued.  He  found 
that  during  high  tide  the  water  covered  the  land  all 
around  him.  A  south  wind  and  heavy  rains  increased 
the  inundation  until  it  was  two  feet  deep.  When  it 
subsided,  the  land  was  such  a  mass  of  mud  that  the  men 
could  not  walk  upon  it. 

As  soon  as  he  was  able,  the  sick  commandant  returned 
through  the  passes  to  his  vessel,  reaching  it  on  the  i5th 
of  April. 


100  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

IN  the  mean  time,  Bienville  was  prosecuting  his  jour- 
ney from  the  Tensas  village  to  the  limits  of  northwest- 
ern Louisiana.  His  journal  is  a  fragment,  a  third  of 
it,  the  last  part,  being  undecipherable  from  damage  by 
water;  and  it  contains  at  best  only  a  bare  record  of 
distance  made ;  but  a  few  extracts  from  it  will  give  an 
idea  what  the  journey  was,  and  will  also  serve  to  intro- 
duce the  journalist,  who  appears  for  the  first  time  in 
these  Relations  speaking  in  propria persona  :  — 

"  On  the  22d  of  March  I  left  the  village  at  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  with  twenty-two  Canadians,  six  Tensas. 
and  one  Ouachita.  I  marched  all  day  in  an  overflowed 
country,  the  water  half-way  up  the  leg,  or  to  the  knees.  In 
the  evening  I  arrived  at  the  bank  of  a  little  river  about 
seventy  paces  wide  and  very  deep,  four  and  a  half  leagues 
distant,  to  the  west,  from  the  Tensas.  I  found  there  some 
Ouachitas,  with  several  pirogues  partly  loaded  with  salt. 
They  were  abandoning  their  village  to  go  and  live  with  the 
Tensas.  They  had  come  from  their  home  by  little  rivers 
navigable  only  in  high  water. 

"  23</.  In  the  morning  I  crossed  the  river  in  the  pirogue 
of  the  Indians.  A  half  league  from  there,  towards  the  west, 
1  came  to  a  river  thirty  paces  wide,  running  north  and 
south,  which  I  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  crossing,  not 
finding  wood  to  make  rafts,  on  which  to  cross  the  baggage." 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  IOI 

They  usually  swam  or  waded  the  streams,  pushing 
the  rafts  before  them,  after  firing  off  their  guns  to  scare 
away  the  alligators,  for  fear  of  their  attacking  them  in 
the  water,  which  they  find,  en  passant,  very  cold. 

"  The  rain  drove  us  to  camp  early.  The  Tensas  de- 
serted on  account  of  the  bad  roads  and  cold  weather ;  they 
do  not  like  walking  naked  through  the  water. 

"  24^.  We  set  out  at  sunrise,  the  weather  pretty  cold. 
Three  quarters  of  a  league  towards  the  west  I  came  to  two 
little  rivers,  which  we  crossed  on  trees  that  we  threw  over 
from  one  side  to  the  other.  Two  leagues  from  there  we 
came  to  a  beautiful  dry  prairie,  ...  at  the  end  of  which 
was  a  river  about  forty  paces  wide,  with  a  strong  current 
and  full  of  crocodiles.  We  crossed  it  with  rafts.  .  .  . 

"  2$th.  .  .  .  Marched  all  day  through  woods,  prairies,  and 
savannas,  always,  without  intermission,  in  water  up  to  the 
knees,  waist,  and  sometimes  to  the  neck.  A  man  of  medium 
height  is  at  great  disadvantage  in  such  countries.  I  see 
some  of  my  men  with  the  water  only  up  to  their  waists, 
while  I  and  others  are  nearly  swimming,  pushing  our  bun- 
dles before  us  on  rafts,  to  keep  them  from  getting  wet.  I 
camped  at  five  o'clock  in  the  evening,  later  than  we  wished, 
not  finding  any  dry  land  except  on  the  edge  of  a  prairie, 
where  there  seemed  to  be  good  hunting,  and  where  my 
men  killed  a  beef. 

"  26th.  Remained  in  this  good  hunting  place,  where  my 
men  killed  three  deer  and  twelve  turkeys,  very  fat.  The 
'  bloody  flux  '  attacked  two  of  my  men. 

"  2*jth.  Set  out  in  the  morning,  leaving  at  the  camp  two 
sick  men  and  a  comrade  to  take  care  of  them.  A  half 
league  from  the  camp  came  to  a  river  thirty-five  paces 
wide.  Crossed  it  with  rafts.  Two  leagues  from  that  river 
we  came  to  another  one  twenty-five  paces  wide,  which 
we  also  crossed.  A  quarter  of  a  league  from  this  river 


102  JEAN  BATT1STE  LE   MOYNE, 

we  came  to  a  swamp  a  quarter  of  a  league  wide,  which  we 
crossed  as  we  did  the  river.  The  water  was  very  cold. 
We  camped  near  by,  on  the  border  of  a  little  lake.  I  cal- 
culate that  we  have  made  to-day  four  leagues,  west-south- 
west, and  are  very  tired. 

"  28//z,  Sunday.  I  arrived  at  the  village  of  the  Ouachi- 
tas.  After  having  gone  two  leagues  and  a  half  towards  the 
west,  we  swam  across  a  swamp  five  hundred  paces  broad, 
and  traversed  several  prairies  separated  by  strips  of  forest, 
and  came  to  the  village  of  the  Ouachitas.  This  village  is 
on  the  banks  of  the  River  Marne,  or  Sablonniere  [Red 
River],  or  rather  on  a  branch  of  it.  There  are  not  more 
than  five  cabins  there,  and  about  seventy  men.  The  river 
in  this  place  may  be  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  paces 
wide,  and  with  as  much  current  as  the  Mississippi.  It 
seems  to  be  deep.  ...  It  rained  all  day. 

2Q//Z.  Rained  until  mid-day,  when  I  set  out  with  a 
Natchito  to  guide  me  to  his  village.  We  crossed  a  river1 
very  broad  and  rather  dry.  From  there  we  fell  into  a  wet 
country,  which  lasted  a  league  and  a  half.  We  came  to 
two  little  rivers  very  rapid,  which  we  had  to  swim  across  ; 
the  water  in  them  was  very  cold.  From  there  we  traversed 
a  swamp,  at  the  end  of  which  we  met  six  Natchitoches 
who  were  going  to  the  Coroas  to  sell  salt.  The  last  rains 
make  the  road  very  difficult  for  us. 

"3U7.  Rained  a  part  of  the  day.  .  .  .  Camped  on  the 
edge  of  a  marsh.  ...  I  am  running  short  of  provisions. 
Three  of  my  men  still  continue  to  walk,  but  they  have  had 
fevers  for  two  days. 

'•'•April  i.  Rained  in  torrents  all  night,  and  this  morn- 
ing until  ten  o'clock.  .  .  .  Our  guide  made  us  make  a  very 
large  dctoiir  to  get  around  the  swamp.  .  .  .  We  crossed  eight 
little  rivers  from  ten  to  twelve  paces  wide,  and  very  deep ; 

1  The  journal  says  three  leagues  wide.  Evidently  a  mistake 
or  an  omission;  probably  three  quarters  of  a  league  is  meant. 


SIEUX  DE  BIENVILLE.  IO3 

we  cut  down  trees  for  bridges;  after  which  we  came  to 
several  swamps  and  sloughs,  in  which  the  water  came  up 
to  the  waist  and  arm-pits.  We  walked  until  night  without 
being  able  to  find  in  all  that  time  one  arpent  proper  for  a 
camping-ground.  We  see  no  traces  of  game,  and  are  re- 
duced to  two  small,  thin  sagamities  a  day. 

"  2.d.  Rained  all  night  and  until  two  o'clock  in  the  day. 
We  were  only  able  to  make  a  league  and  a  half  to-day,  be- 
cause of  the  bad  roads  through  the  swamp ;  the  water  was  as 
high  as  the  waist  at  least.  We  came  to  six  little  rivers  that 
we  had  to  cross  on  narrow  trees  at  least  two  feet  under  the 
water.  The  cane  grows  so  thick  in  this  country  that  we 
had  to  force  our  way  through,  which  fatigued  us  very  much, 
having  passed  the  two  last  nights  in  the  rain,  failing  to  find 
large  trees  from  which  to  strip  the  bark  for  cabins.  .  .  . 

"  ^d.    Rained  all  night  in  torrents. 

"  5//z.  A  half  league  from  our  camp  we  came  to  a  swamp, 
a  quarter  of  a  league  wide,  where  there  was  no  bottom  at 
six  feet,  and  which  was  filled  with  wood,  out  of  which  we 
made  rafts  to  carry  our  clothes.  We  were  all  day  in  cross- 
ing it.  The  water  was  very  cold,  several  of  my  men  were 
seized  with  the  cold,  and  had  to  climb  up  in  the  trees  and 
stay  there  to  recover ;  four  passed  nearly  the  whole  day  up 
in  them,  until  rafts  were  sent  to  fetch  them  away.  My  men 
and  I  were  never  so  tired  in  our  lives.  .  .  .  This  is  good 
work  for  tempering  the  fires  of  youth.  But  we  never  stop 
singing  and  laughing,  to  show  our  guides  that  fatigue  does 
not  trouble  us,  and  that  we  are  different  men  from  the 
Spaniards. 

"  6th.  We  made  three  leagues  and  a  half  west-southwest, 
when  we  came  to  a  large  lake  which  we  were  obliged  to  go 
around,  making  two  leagues  and  a  half  south-southeast.  .  .  . 
We  came  to  two  cabins  of  Natchitoches,  who  took  to  flight 
on  seeing  us.  Our  guide  reassured  them,  and  they  came  to 
us  ;  they  were  well  treated.  We  can  only  get  to  their  vil- 


IO4  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

lage  (they  have  but  two  villages)  in  pirogues,  on  account  of 
the  overflow  of  the  river. 

"  1th.  I  took  two  pirogues  and  left  with  the  half  of  my 
men,  .  .  .  and  arrived  at  the  village  of  the  Souchitionys, 
where  I  was  well  received." 

He  describes  this  village  as  consisting  of  fifteen  cabins 
in  all.  The  river  in  front  of  it  was  very  broad,  filled 
with  driftwood,  and  four  fathoms  deep  in  the  high  water. 

"  I  immediately  sent  the  pirogues  to  fetch  the  rest  of 
my  men.  .  .  .  The  Natchitoches  are  about  a  league  distant, 
settled  in  cabins  along  Red  River. 

"  8M.  All  the  men  arrived.  I  put  the  Indians  to  work 
pounding  corn. 

"  gth.  Rained  all  day  ;  the  women  could  not  finish  pound- 
ing the  Indian  corn.  The  warriors  came  to  fetch  me,  and 
carried  me  on  their  shoulders  into  a  kind  of  hall  covered 
with  palmettos,  where  they  were  all  assembled  to  sing  the 
calumet.  I  gave  them  and  the  chief  of  the  Natchitoches 
a  little  present  and  a  calumet  of  peace. 

"  \Qlh.  Rained  all  day ;  the  chief  promised  me  his  son  to 
conduct  me  to  the  Yataches. 

"  \\th.  Easter  ;  left  in  pirogues  to  get  over  three  leagues 
of  bad  country,  north-northeast  of  the  village.  .  .  . 

"  \2th.  Left  our  pirogues,  and  marched  by  land  one 
league  north,  where  we  found  a  large  lake  six  leagues 
long  and  a  half  league  wide.  .  . 

"  i^th.  Crossed  five  little  rivers,  very  close  together, 
which  flowed  into  this  lake.  Went  to  the  north-north- 
east a  league  and  a  half,  and  fell  upon  a  beaten  track, 
which  we  followed,  going  five  leagues  and  a  half  west- 
northwest  through  open  forests  and  rivers,  finding  springs 
and  good  hunting  ;  deer  and  turkeys. 

"  \\th.  Continued  to  march.    Came  to  a  wooded  swamp, 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  105 

very  deep,  and  so  long  that  our  guides  said  that  we  should 
have  to  sleep  four  nights  to  get  around  it,  but  that  about  a 
league  to  the  south  there  were  three  cabins  on  the  bank  of 
a  river  where  there  were  pirogues.  I  put  my  men  imme- 
diately to  hollowing  out  a  pirogue  with  our  tomahawks. 
It  was  finished  in  five  hours,  large  enough  to  hold  six 
men,  whom  I  sent  to  hunt  for  the  Indian  cabins  and  the 
pirogues.  My  men  went  hunting  and  killed  six  deer. 

"  I5//2.  My  men  returned,  bringing  me  the  three  pi- 
rogues, in  which  we  embarked ;  and  having  made  four 
leagues  north-northeast,  arrived  on  the  other  side  of  the 
lake,  where  we  slept. 

"  \6th,  Left  our  pirogues  and  marched  the  length  of  the 
lake  on  a  ridge  of  fine  country  and  forest,  where  we  killed, 
walking  along,  five  deer,  and  made  three  leagues  and  a 
half  to  the  northwest,  crossing  several  hills  pretty  high.  .  .  . 
We  fired  several  shots  to  notify  the  Indians  on  the  other 
side  of  a  lake  a  league  away,  in  the  west-southwest.  Five 
men  came  in  a  pirogue  to  discover  who  we  were.  Our 
guide  called  them  and  made  them  come  to  us.  I  em- 
barked in  their  pirogue  with  two  of  my  men,  leaving 
three  Indians  in  my  place.  I  went  to  their  village, 
which  was  covered  with  water.  They  were  living  on 
scaffolds.  There  were  fifteen  cabins  scattered  around 
there  of  the  tribe  of  the  Nakasas,  who  live  on  the  banks 
of  Red  River.  .  .  . 

"  \"jth.  I  sent  the  pirogues  for  my  men,  who  arrived  at 
midday.  I  set  out  immediately  in  two  pirogues  to  go  to 
the  Yataches,  cutting  across  the  woods  the  shortest  way, 
the  river  having  overflowed  the  country  for  two  leagues' 
distance.  Night  overtook  us  opposite  a  little  village  of 
the  Nakasas,  —  eight  cabins  on  the  left  bank  of  Red 
River,  where  we  slept.  The  river  is  a  hundred  and  sixty 
paces  wide  at  this  place,  and  has  as  much  current  as  the 
Mississippi. 

"  iSf/t.  Sent  three  pirogues  to  fetch  the  rest  of  my  men. 


1*6  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

There  is  not  an  arpent  of  land  around  these  cabins  that 
is  not  overflowed.  I  found  very  little  corn.  .  .  . 

"  igth.  My  men  arrived.  It  was  too  late  to  go  to  the 
Yataches,  which  made  the  Indians  very  angry,  making 
us  understand  that  they  had  no  more  corn  to  give  us.  ... 
All  the  Indians  about  here  are  tattooed  around  the  eyes 
and  on  the  nose,  with  three  stripes  on  the  chin. 

"  2oth.  We  left  in  two  old  pirogues,  the  ends  of  which 
were  stopped  with  earth ;  .  .  .  followed  the  river,  which 
makes  several  bends ;  .  .  .  arrived  at  the  village  of  the 
Yataches.  The  cabins  are  scattered  along  the  river  for 
the  space  of  two  leagues.  Upon  our  arrival,  the  Indians, 
having  heard  from  an  Indian  arrived  a  little  before  us, 
that  we  wished  provisions  and  pirogues,  had  hidden  their 
corn  and  pirogues.  I  threatened  them  if  they  did  not  pro- 
vide us  with  them  that  I  would  remain  there.  I  sent  my 
men,  at  the  same  time,  through  the  cabins.  From  here  to 
the  Caddodaquios,  in  summer,  they  calculate  it  as  only  two 
days'  journey. 

"2is/.  The  Indians  giving  me  to  understand  that  they 
would  give  me  the  pirogues  and  provisions,  to  procure 
greater  diligence  I  sent  a  man  into  each  cabin  with  beads 
and  other  trifles  to  get  the  corn  pounded  promptly,  and 
I  went  with  two  men  in  a  pirogue  to  search  for  other 
pirogues  the  length  of  the  river.  I  only  found  three, 
which  I  bought  with  two  hatchets  apiece.  The  water 
fell  to-day  two  feet.  I  went  into  forty  different  cabins 
the  length  of  the  river. 

"  22d.  Embarked  for  the  Caddodaquios,  who  are  north- 
west from  here.  Although  the  Indians  tell  me  that  it  will 
take  ten  days  and  ten  nights  to  get  there  by  the  river,  I 
cannot  believe  it,  as  it  is  only  two  days'  journey  by  land, 
on  which  I  cannot  travel,  on  account  of  the  high  water; 
but  being  once  started,  the  guides,  seeing  me  determined 
to  go  there,  will,  as  they  have  done  in  several  places,  tell 
me  the  truth  about  the  distance.  .  .  ."' 


SIEUR  DE   BIENl'lLLE.  IO/ 

The  Indians  persisting  in  their  assurance  that  it  would 
take  ten  days  and  ten  nights  to  reach  the  Caddodaquios, 
and  as  the  current  in  the  river  was  very  strong,  and  he 
had  only  twenty  days  left  to  the  date  at  which  he  was  due 
at  the  vessels,  besides  several  of  his  men  being  disabled 
from  maladies  resulting  from  their  exposure  and  fatigue, 
Bienville  adopted  the  resolution  of  turning  back,  and  not 
endeavoring  to  reach  the  limit  of  the  Spanish  posses- 
sions. He  was  enabled,  however,  from  questioning  the 
Indians,  to  form  an  idea  of  what  these  possessions  were, 
and  where  they  were.  Several  Caddodaquios,  a  Naova- 
diche,  and  a  Nadaco,  whom  he  talked  to,  had  been  to 
a  Spanish  settlement  five  leagues  and  a  half  to  the  west 
of  the  Caddodaquios  village,  where  there  were  white, 
black,  and  mulatto  men,  women,  and  children  engaged 
in  cultivating  the  land.  This  settlement  was  near  the 
village  of  the  Naovadiches.  The  Indians  said  that  the 
Spaniards  often  came  to  the  Caddodaquios  on  horse- 
back, to  the  number  of  thirty  or  forty,  but  that  they 
never  slept  there.  Bienville  applied  himself  particularly 
to  finding  out  if  the  Spaniards  had  any  mines  about 
there,  or  dug  in  the  earth  for  silver.  He  was  told  no, 
that  they  only  raised  corn,  that  they  had  money  like  the 
pieces  Bienville  showed  them,  that  they  staked  it  on 
cards,  some  of  them  stamping  their  feet  and  tearing 
the  cards  up  when  they  lost. 

On  the  23d  of  April  the  party  began  to  descend 
Red  River  in  four  pirogues.  After  this  the  journal 
becomes  unintelligible.  Cutting_across  the  country, 
the_  party  struck  the  banks  of  the  MississippPbrT  the 
iith  of  May.  Here  continual  rain  arrested  them  four 
days,  ancTthey  had  to  give  three  days  to  hunting,  being 


108  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

entirely  out  of  provisions.  On  the  i8th  of  May  they 
arrived  at  the  ships. 

Iberville  mentions  that  they  brought  the  news  of 
further  infractions  of  the  peace  so  recently  sworn  by 
their  allies.  The  Bayagoulas  had  arisen  and  massacred 
their  village  associates,  the  Mongoulachas,  whose  empty 
cabins  and  dispossessed  fields  had  been  filled  by  an  im- 
portation of  Colapissas  and  Sioux.  Iberville  says  that 
the  event  gives  him  a  good  title  to  the  greater  portion  of 
the  Bayagoula  village,  for  it  belonged  to  the  Mongou- 
lacha  chief,  who  sold  it  to  him,  Iberville,  with  all  his 
other  villages  near  the  sea 

Montigny  and  Davion,  arriving  about  the  same  time, 
brought  further  disquieting  confirmation  of  the  tamper- 
ings  of  the  English  with  the  Indians  to  the  north  of  the 
French ;  and  Tonty  wrote  of  the  efforts  he  had  made 
in  carrying  out  Iberville's  purpose  to  frustrate  these 
tamperings,  by  extolling  the  superior  trading  advantages 
the  French  could  offer  to  these  same  Indians  over  the 
English. 

Iberville  made  one  more  visit  to  his  new  fort  on  the 
Mississippi,  to  regulate,  as  he  said,  a  great  many  affairs 
there. 

Putting  Bienville  in  command,  he  returned  to  Ship 
Island,  and  sailed  for  France  on  the  28th  of  May. 
Montigny,  the  priest,  sailed  with  him. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  IOQ 


CHAPTER   IX. 

<fr 

1700-1701. 

BIENVILLE  received  no  written  instructions  from  Iber- 
ville,  as  Sauvole  did,  and  he  seems  to  have  made  only 
verbal  reports.  But  notwithstanding  there  is  no  refer- 
ence to,  or  publication  of,  any  written  correspondence 
between  the  brothers,  one  is  made  aware  that  even  at 
this  time  there  did  exist  between  them,  as  between  all 
the  Canadians  engaged  in  the  Louisiana  enterprise, 
private  communication  of  some  sort  for  the  distribu- 
tion of  intelligence,  and  a  tacit  agreement  as  to  the 
furtherance  of  their  policy  or  what  the  French  called 
their  projects.  The  governor  of  Canada  openly  ac- 
cused them  of  such  a  combination,  which  the  French 
officers  sent  at  different  times  to  the  colony,  consecrated 
their  small  energies  to  denounce  and  thwart,  although 
offering  no  better  substitute  by  their  own  conduct. 

As  has  been  said,  Bienville  kept  no  journal ;  but 
glimpses  are  obtained  of  him  in  his  handsomely  desig- 
nated fort  of  the  Mississippi  by  the  casual  mention  of 
others.  Sauvole  gives  us  the  laconic  statement  of  him 
that  he  had  great  trouble  to  subsist  there.  Father 
Gravier,  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  who  came  there  in 
1701  from  his  post  among  the  Illinois,  to  assist  Father 
du  Rhu  (a  Jesuit  brought  from  France  by  Iberville), 


1 10  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

makes  a  pen  picture  of  the  place  which  gives  ample 
justification  to  Sauvole's  comment ;  and  this  was  before 
the  fever  came,  with  its  contribution  of  distress.  This 
picture  of  what  was  accomplished,  forms  an  interesting 
"  pendant "  to  Iberville's  letter  to  the  Minister  of  Ma- 
rine, written  on  the  same  spot,  detailing  what  he  in- 
tended to  accomplish. 

\ >  "There  is  no  fort,"  writes  Gravier,  "nor  bastion,  in- 
J  trenchment,  nor  redoubt ;  all  consists  of  a  battery  of  six 
guns,  six  and  eight  pounders,  on  the  brow  of  the  bluff,  and 
of  five  or  six  cabins  separate  from  each  other,  and  covered 
with  palm-leaves.  M.  de  Bienville  has  quite  a  nice  little 
house  there.  I  perceived  on  arriving  that  they  began  to 
cry  famine,  and  that  the  breadstuffs  began  to  run  out,  — 
which  obliged  me  to  take  to  Indian  food,  so  as  to  be  a 
burden  to  none,  and  to  put  up  with  corn,  without  meat  or 
fish,  till  the  vessels  come,  which  are  hardly  expected  before 
the  end  of  March.  .  .  .  The  wheat  which  had  been  planted 
here  was  already  quite  high  when  the  inundations  caused 
by  a  furious  swell  of  the  sea  in  August  swept  it  away.  The 
garden  was  hardly  more  successful,  besides  there  being  a 
great  quantity  of  black  snakes  that  ate  the  lettuces  and 
other  vegetables  to  the  root.  .  .  .  The  high  waters  overflow 
so  furiously  here  that  they  have  been  four  months  in  the 
water,  often  knee-deep  outside  their  cabins,  although  the 
Indians  had  assured  them  that  the  place  was  never  inun- 
dated. .  .  .  They  could  not  make  the  first  settlement  in  a 
spot  where  there  are  more  mosquitoes  than  here.  They 
are  here  almost  the  whole  year.  In  sooth,  they  have  given 
us  but  little  truce  for  seven  or  eight  days  ;  at  this  moment 
they  sting  me  in  close  ranks ;  and  in  the  month  of  Decem- 
ber, when  you  ought  not  to  be  troubled  by  them,  there  was 
such  a  furious  quantity  that  I  could  not  write  a  word  with- 
out having  my  hands  and  face  covered,  and  it  was  impos- 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  I  1 1 

sible  for  me  to  sleep  the  whole  night.  They  stung  me  so 
in  one  eye  that  I  thought  1  should  lose  it.  The  French  of 
this  fort  told  me  that  from  the  month  of  March  there  is 
such  a  prodigious  quantity  of  them  that  the  air  was  dark- 
ened with  them,  and  that  they  could  not  distinguish  each 
other  ten  paces  apart.  .  .  .  The  arrival  of  the  vessels  is 
expected  from  day  to  day. 

"As  for  Fort  Biloxi,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  besides  the 
air  being  better  and  the  country  more  open,  all  kinds  of 
garden  vegetables  can  be  raised  there ;  deer  are  near,  and 
hunting  good  ;  and  to  temper  the  heat,  every  day,  an  hour 
or  two  before  noon,  there  comes  from  the  sea  a  breeze  that 
cools  the  air.  Only  the  water  is  not  very  good ;  it  is  a 
little  spring  that  supplies  them,  for  that  of  the  bay  is  more 
than  brackish,  and  is  not  drinkable.  There  are  more  than 
a  hundred  and  twenty  men  in  the  fort." 

The  superiority  of  his  condition  over  that  of  Bienville 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  much  of  a  solace  to  Sau- 
volCi. —  at  least  it  does  not  appear  so  in  his  journal.  He 
complains  of  the  state  of  scarcity  before  the  arrival  of 
relief  from  France  ;  and  in  fact  he  seems  to  have  suffered 
not  only  for  lack  of  food,  drink,  health,  and  peace,  but 
for  lack  of  everything  that  could  have  made  such  a  lot 
bearable  to  such  a  man. 

He  struggled  manfully  through  the  instructions  left  by 
Iberville.  St.  Denis,  with  twelve  Canadians,  was  sent  to 
continue  the  exploration  of  the  Red  River  country,  with 
orders  to  push  as  far  towards  the  west  —  consequently  / 
as  close  to  New  Mexico  —  as  possible,  where  it  was 
thought,  if  anywhere  in  Louisiana,  gold  and  silver  mines 
were  to  be  Tound.  A  Spaniard  was  to  guide  the  party, 
and  Indians  on  the  route,  hostile  to  the  Spaniards,  were 


112  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

to  be  carefully  conciliated.  Maps  were  to  be  made  of 
the  country,  and  any  mines  discovered  (it  is  presumed 
no  matter  how  near  the  Spanish  lines),  were  to  be  im- 
mediately taken  possession  of,  in  the  name  of  the  king 
of  France.  Other  work  was  provided  in  abundance  for 
Biloxi,  —  the  testing  of  the  durability  of  the  different 
forest  woods,  charred  and  uncharred,  in  the  waters  of 
the  bay;  the  gathering  of  pearls  and  of  buffalo  wool  j1 
the  Mobile  River  was  to  be  explored,  and  a  visit  of 
reconnoissance  made  to  the  much-talked-of  Choctaws. 
But  Sauvole  found,  as  the  summer  came  on,  another 
and  different  programme  laid  down  for  him  by  a  com- 
mander fully  as  arbitrary  as  Iberville. 

He  chronicles  once  and  awhile  some  little  episode 
that  makes  a  pleasant  interpolation  in  the  general  monot- 
ony of  his  complaints.  The  Tohomes  and  Mobile 
Indians  had  come  to  ask  help  and  protection  in  some 
of  their  inter-tribal  disputes,  and  had  gained  both  by 
furnishing  supplies  of  corn.  These  savages  described 
the  lands  lying  along  their  river,  the  Mobile,  as  being 
the  finest  in  the  country,  and  expressed  an  ardent  de- 
sire that  the  French  should  establish  themselves  upon 
them,  being,  of  course,  on  bad  terms  with  the  Spaniards, 
who  had  killed  one  of  their  men. 

.  The  long-expected  vessel,  the  "  Enfiamme'e,"  at  length 
arrived,  the  last  of  May ;  but  she  appears  to  have 
brought  only  transitory  relief,  for  a  transport  was  sent 
not  long  afterwards  to  St.  Domingo  for  both  food  and 
medicine. 

1  There  was  an  idea,  emanating  from  France,  of  herding  the 
buffaloes  in  pens  near  Biloxi,  and  domesticating  them  for  their 
wool. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  113 

Among  the  passengers  of  the  "  Enflamme'e  "  was  one 
of  the  products  of  that  sensational  age,  —  Mathieu 
Sagean,  a  growth  of  the  Hennepin  order,  although,  be- 
ing a  mere  fictionist,  a  more  harmless  specimen.  His 
story,  a  fantastically  wondrous  one,  of  a  voyage  up  the 
Mississippi  some  twenty  years  before,  and  of  his  discov- 
eries thereupon  of  strange  countries,  peoples,  customs, 
and  treasures  of  precious  stones  and  wealth  galore,  had 
found  credence  with  Pontchartrain,  who  consigned  him 
and  a  manuscript  copy  of  his  inventions  forthwith  to 
Sauvole,  with  stringent  orders  to  furnish  twenty-four 
pirogues  and  one  hundred  Canadians,  and  expedite  the 
glowing  author  with  all  haste  into  his  realm  of  fancy. 
The  Canadians,  who  knew  their  America  better  than 
Pontchartrain  did  his  man,  denounced  the  flimsy  impos- 
ture to  Sauvole,  who  also  drew  his  own  conclusions  from 
the  manuscript.  Pontchartrain 's  orders  were  obeyed  as 
to  the  making  of  the  pirogues,  but  haste  was  otherwise 
made  very  slowly  ;  "  Sagean,"  writes  Sauvole,  in  the 
humour  of  the  situation,  "  acting  the  impatient  all  the 
time  over  the  delay,  convinced  that  if  a  start  is  not 
made  by  September,  he  will  be  forced,  on  account  of  the 
ice,  to  pass  his  winter  with  the  Illinois."  Shortly  after- 
wards the  arrival  of  Tonty  is  recorded.  The  rainy 
season  set  in,  and  sickness  was  not  long  in  making  its 
appearance,  reaching  its  worst  about  the  ist  of  July,  and 
attacking  particularly  the  Canadians,  who  were  never- 
theless not  a  whit  more  orderly  on  that  account.  Sauvole 
waxes  indignant  over  their  mutinous  conduct  and  indis- 
position to  work.  "  I  give  my  assurance  that  for  the 
least  task  I  have  to  go  myself  and  get  them  out  of"  their 
beds,  and  I  dare  not  quit  them  until  they  have  finished 


114  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LR  MOYNE, 

what  I  wish  accomplished."  Such  men,  he  says,  cost 
too  much  ;  and  although  he  recognizes  their  vivacity, 
strength,  and  quickness  when  the  task  pleases  them, 
French  hirelings  would  be  preferable.  An  Englishman, 
settled  among  the  Chickasaws,  had  been  killed  and 
plundered  by  Canadian  voyageurs ;  three  Canadians, 
travelling  in  Carolina,  had,  on  the  contrary,  been  well  re- 
ceived by  the  English.  Le  Sueur  arrived  from  the  coun- 
try of  the  Sioux  with  the  feluccas  Iberville  had  loaned 
him,  loaded  with  green  earth  from  his  mine,  and 
several  specimens  of  copper,  which  lie  shipped  to 
France  on  the  "  Enflamme'e."  Sauvole  cites  this  suc- 
cess with  his  Frenchmen  in  favour  of  the  advantages 
of  French  against  Canadian  labour. 

Sauvole  charged  the  priests  going  up  the  river  to  their 
mission  work  among  the  Natchez,  to  buy  and  send 
corn  to  him,  and  also  to  send  an  invitation  to  Father 
Marest  to  come  down  the  river  from  his  station  among 
the  Illinois,  and  assist  in  the  work  of  the  new  settle- 
ment. The  Jesuit  Du  Rhu,  instead  of  endeavouring  to 
alleviate  the  general  moral  and  physical  discomfort, 
seems  to  have  made  use  of  his  spiritual  powers  in  just 
the  opposite  effort,  "showing  himself,"  Sauvole  writes, 
on  this,  as  on  other  occasions,  of  a  frivolous,  unaccom- 
modating character,  getting  into  trouble  with  all  the 
officers,  without  being  able  to  stand  the  least  remon- 
strance, to  such  a  degree,  even,  that  to  revenge  himself 
(for  such  a  remonstrance,  presumably)  he  tried  to  draw 
the  men  away  from  the  obedience  due  him,  Sauvole. 

The  "  Enflammee  "  sailed  for  France.  The  transport, 
which  had  been  sent  to  St.  Domingo  for  food  and 
medicine,  brought  only  twenty-two  barrels  of  flour,  and 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  115 

a  few  of  wine,  —  a  supply  which  could  not  go  far,  partic- 
ularly in  the  overplus  of  men  in  the  fort.  Canadian 
voyageurs,  to  the  number  of  sixty,  had  travelled  down 
the  river  to  the  fort,  with  their  accumulations  of  peltry, 
in  hopes  of  trade  and  refreshment  of  their  rude  neces- 
sities ;  but  Sauvole,  obeying  the  orders  dictated  by  the 
growing  jealousy  and  discontent  of  Canada  towards  the 
new  colony,  would  not  allow  them  to  ship  one  hair  by 
the  "  Enflammee."  They  paid,  Sauvole  says,  their  tri- 
bute to  the  epidemic,  and  although  they  did  not  deserve 
it,  he  could  not  help  succouring  them. 

Sauvole  himself  paid  his  tribute  also  to  the  epidemic. 
His  last  entry  in  the  journal  is  dated  Aug.  4,  1701.  A 
simple  paragraph  by  La  Harpe  and  a  curt  mention  by 
Iberville  record  that  he  died  just  eighteen  days  after- 
wards, on  the  22d  of  August.  One  wishes  some,  if 
even  conventional,  term  of  regret  or  esteem  for  the 
young  commander,  some  testimony  to  his  appearance 
and  character,  if  not  to  his  work  and  influence  ;  but  his 
own  fragmentary  journals  and  one  commendatory  sen- 
tence by  Iberville  are  all  that  remain  to  fix  the  person- 
ality of  the  young  ensign  of  the  "  Marin,"  "  the  relative 
of  M.  de  Polastron,  commandant  of  St.  Malo,"  whom 
we  call  the  first  governor  of  Louisiana.  Bienville  imme- 
diately left  the  fort  of  the  Mississippi  to  take  command 
at  Biloxi ;  Iberville  carried  his  fever  with  him  to  France. 
It  hung  upon  him  some  time  in  La  Rochelle,  delaying 
his  report  to  the  Minister  of  Marine.  In  January,  1701, 
he  was  in  Paris  three  weeks,  personally  pushing  the 
affairs  of  his  establishment,  and  working  upon  a  paper 
which,  if  its  argument  had  succeeded  with  the  French 
and  Spanish  Governments,  would  have  placed  those 


J  I 
Il6  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

affairs  indeed  in  a  promising  light,  and  changed  the  his- 
tory of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  From  the  Spanish  Govern- 
ment he  wished  to  obtain  the  cession  of  Pensacola,  and 
from  the  French  such  a  regular  system  of  fortification 
anoT  arming  of  Indians  along  the  Mississippi  "ahoT  its 
tributaries  as  would  hold  them  beyond  peradventure  to 
France^,  and  establish  a  solid  bulwark  of  French  domina- 
tion straight  through  the  continent  from  Canada  to  "tlie 
Gulf  of  Mexico, — a  bulwark  which,  while  it  would  T5ar 
the  West  to  the  English,  would  furnish  such  a  vantage- 
ground  of  aggression  into  the  East  that  it  would  Jbe^a 
mere  question  of  time  when  they,  the  English,  would 
be  confined  to  a  thin  strip  along  the  Atlantic  coast. 

Whether  Iberville,  with  his  keen  sagacity,  saw  that 
Canada  was  a  foredoomed  loss  to  France  and  gain  to 
England,  and  he  consequently  sought  to  create  an  equiva- 
lent and  counterpoise  in  the  erection  and  solidification 
of  a  French,  or  at  least  French  and  Spanish,  power  in 
the  southern  end  of  the  continent ;  whether  he  really 
dreaded  the  encroachments  of  the  English  upon  Alabama 
and  Florida  ;  the  inability  of  the  Spaniards  to  hold  them, 
and  their  gradual  yielding  to  the  English,  who,  by  push- 
ing west  and  south,  could  close  in  around  the  French 
possessions  of  Louisiana  until  they  would  be  left  hang- 
ing, as  it  were,  from  Canada  upon  the  thread  of  the 
Mississippi,  a  thread  which  could  at  any  moment  be 
severed  in  a  score  of  places  by  the  English  or  An- 
glo-Indians ;  whether,  in  short,  Iberville  was  loyally 
minded  to  the  Spaniards,  or,  holding  the  Gulf,  as  he 
claimed,  from  La  Salle's  bay,  on  the  coast  of  Texas,  to 
Mobile  in  Alabama,  with  the  intermediary  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi  and  the  good  anchorage  of  Ship  Island,  he 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  II J 

sought  by  specious  reasons  to  obtain  from  the  French 
king  of  Spain  Pensacoia,  which  would  not  only  extend 
the  French  coast-line,  but  guarantee  the  French  domi- 
nation over  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  supervision  of  the 
route  of  the  Spanish  galleons,  and  furnish  a  latch-key  to 
Vera  Cruz,  —  whether,  as  has  been  said,  Iberville  was 
loyally  minded  to  the  Spaniards,  or  intended  to  enact 
towards  them  the  role  of  the  English  towards  the  French 
in  Canada,  is  a  question  to  be  decided  when  his  own  life 
is  written. 

His  paper  was  submitted  to  the  king  of  Spain,  who 
in  his -turn  submitted  it  to  the  Junta  of  War  and  the  In- 
dies. The  Junta,  however,  far  from  being  convinced  by 
the  Canadian's  careful  enumeration  and  recapitulation 
of  the  reasons  why  Spain  could  not  hold  her  possessions 
against  the  English,  and  of  the  great  profit  to  be  gained 
by  ceding  thern  to  France,  not  only  negatived  the  whole 
proposition,  but  characterized  Iberville's  possession  of 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  as  an  usurpation,  and  ad- 
vised the  offering  to  him  and  his  men  the  simple  choice 
of  changing  their  allegiance- to- the-  Crown  of  Spain,  or  of 
being  driven  out  as  adventurers  and  interlopers,  appeal- 
ing to  the  indisputable  investiture  accorded  to  the 
monarchy  of  Spain  in  the  New  World  by  the  bull  of 
Alexander  VI.  Pending  the  negotiation,  Iberville  loaded 
his  frigate,  the  "  Renomme'e,"  with  the  necessary  supplies 
for  Biloxi  and  the  fort  of  the  Mississippi,  and  made  a 
memorandum  for  the  Minister  of  Marine  of  what  would 
be  required  for  the  proper  arming  and  fortification  of 
Pensacoia,  should  the  Spanish  Government  consent  to  its 
cession.  Should  it  not  consent,  —  which  Iberville  says 
would  be  an  act  of  obstinacy  on  its  part,  and  of  great 


Il8  JEAff  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

ignorance,  for  the  English,  with  the  aid  of  the  inland 
Indians,  would  not  fail  to  drive  the  Spaniards  out  of 
Florida,  —  he  intended  to  erect  a  fortification  at  Mobile 
Bay,  make  peace  with  the  Chickasaws,  and  arm  them 
against  the  Indians.  It  was  this  latter  alternative  which 
he  was  forced  to  adopt. 

After  waiting  the  utmost  limit  of  time  for  the  return  of 
the  "  Enflamme'e,"  and  the  no  less  overdue  answer  from 
Spain,  he  received  orders  from  Versailles  for  immediate 
sailing. 

On  this  voyage  Iberville  was  accompanied  by  his  fifth 
brother  and  closest  emulator  in  the  family  and  his  able 
coadjutor  in  the  Hudson  Bay  expedition,  Le  Moyne  de 
Serigny,  lieutenant  of  marine  in  command  of  the  "  Pal- 
mier." On  the  1 5th  of  December  they  arrived  before 
Pensacola,  which  the  relaxing  vigilance  of  the  Spaniards 
permitted  them  to  enter.  De  la  Riola  was  absent  in 
Vera  Cruz  ;  but  his  sergeant-major  came  on  board  to  pay 
his  respects,  and  announced  the  death  of  Sauvole. 

Iberville  in  his  turn  announced  the  succession  of  the 
Duke  of  Anjou  to  the  throne  of  Spain,  —  intelligence 
which  was  received  with  great  joy. 

A  boat  was  despatched  to  Biloxi  with  orders  for  Bien- 
ville  at  once  to  transport  himself  to  Mobile  with  men 
and  materials  necessary  to  make  an  establishment  there. 
Serigny  and  Chateauguay  took  over  from  Pensacola 
provisions,  materials,  and  eighty  men  from  the  equipage 
of  the  "  Renommee  "  and  "Palmier"  in  small  boats. 
With  them  went  over  at  the  same  time  to  Mobile  the  Sieur 
de  la  Salle,  a  relation  of  the  great  explorer,  and  one  of 
the  first  discoverers,  he  claims,  of  the  Mississippi.  Ap- 
pointed royal  commissary  of  the  colony,  he  turned  out 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  119 

eventually,  as  will  be  seen,  a  royal  mischief-maker. 
Iberville  himself  was  unable  to  go  to  Mobile,  being  con- 
fined to  his  bed,  ever  since  leaving  St.  Domingo,  with  an 
abscess  in  his  side  for  which  he  had  to  submit  to  an 
operation 'that  caused  him  great  suffering.  His  activity, 
however,  seems  little  diminished  thereby.  Every  day  of 
his  journal  is  well  filled  with  previsional  and  provisional 
orders  and  instructions,  —  building  magazines  for  the 
royal  property  on  Massacre  Island;  locating  the  new 
establishment  on  Mobile  River,  "  sixteen  leagues  from 
Massacre  Island  at  the  second  bluff,"  he  writes  to  Bien- 
ville  ;  sending  constant  reinforcements  of  workmen  from 
his  crew ;  directing  the  building  of  flat  boats  to  lighter 
the  freighted  barges  through  Mobile  Bay ;  sending  Tonty 
with  ambassadorial  powers  to  the  Chickasaws  and  Choc- 
taws  ;  and  lending  one  of  his  boats  to  the  Spaniards  to 
send  to  Vera  Cruz  for  relief.  Pensacola  was  in  its  nor- 
mal state  of  misery  ;  Iberville  writes  that  it  could  not  be 
greater.  The  long-due  ship  of  provisions  from  Vera  Cruz 
was  feared  to  be  lost ;  the  garrison  was  utterly  destitute 
of  food,  clothing,  and  money.  Of  the  one  hundred  and 
eighty  men  composing  it,  sixty  were  convicts,  and  they, 
Iberville  says,were  the  better  men  ;  all  were  discontented, 
and  desertions  were  of  daily  occurrence.  When  the 
French  ships  arrived,  the  governor  and  officers  were 
worn  out,  having  been  on  foot  night  and  day  from  an 
indefinitely  protracted  apprehension  of  a  mutiny. 


I2O  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER  X. 

BIENVILLE'S  garrison  at  Biloxi  was  in  no  better  condi- 
tion physically  than  the  Spanish  garrison  at  Pensacola. 
One  half  of  the  men  were  actually  ill  or  convalescent, 
and  all  were  in  dire  distress  for  want  of  food,  having 
had  no  other  subsistence  for  three  months  than  the 
small  quantities  of  corn  that  could  be  bought  from  the 
Indians,  and  what  game  the  hunters  could  kill.  Bien- 
ville  mustered  a  force  of  forty  for  the  work  at  Mobile, 
where  he,  with  his  brothers  Serigny  and  Chateauguay, 
displayed  the  same  activity  in  executing  Iberville's 
orders  that  the  latter  did  in  issuing  them. 

Tents  were  erected  on  Massacre  Island,  and  maga- 
zines hastily  constructed  to  receive  the  provisions  and 
goods  discharged  from  the  transports,  while  work  was 
begun  upon  the  fort  and  magazines  at  Mobile.  All  the 
men  and  material  were  landed  at  the  first  place,  and  fer- 
ried over  to  their  final  port,  the  shallows  in  the  channel 
not  permitting  the  free  entrance  of  the  vessels  themselves 
into  the  bay.  In  reading  of  the  contrarieties  of  wind  and 
tide  that  befell  them,  of  the  sand-banks  and  shifting  chan- 
nels, of  the  tedious  and  never-ceasing  work  of  trans- 
portation, and  of  the  unavoidable  accidents  and  mishaps 
attending  it,  —  one  is  not  surprised  at  the  recurring  long- 
ing of  the  French  and  their  increasing  admiration  for 
the  commodious  and  easily  accessible  harbour  of 
Pensacola. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  121 

Iberville's  wound  healing  in  the  course  of  two 
months,  he  was  able  to  sail  over  to  Mobile  in  the 
"  Palmier,"  carrying  the  last  instalment  of  provisions. 
One  Spanish  pilot  had  told  him  of  a  channel  between 
Massacre  Island  and  the  little  island  to  the  south  of  it, 
Pelican  Island.  As  soon  as  the  wind  permitted,  he  found 
this  channel,  and  easily  carried  the  "  Palmier  "  through  it 
over  the  bar,  and  anchored  in  Mobile  Harbour,  which  he 
praises  as  having  a  depth  of  thirty  feet,  and  protection 
from  north  and  south  wind.  The  channel,  he  wrote, 
although  difficult  of  entrance,  would  be  easy  to  defend ; 
but  he  was  not  sure  that  a  south  wind  might  not  shift 
the  bar  at  the  mouth,  —  which  really  occurred  some  ten 
years  afterwards,  practically  closing  it. 

He  found  the  transport,  under  command  of  M.  de 
Marigny,  engaged  in  trips  between  Biloxi  and  Mobile, 
stranded  on  the  shore,  where  it  had  been  driven  from 
its  anchors  by  a  south  wind.  After  working  at  it  for 
some  time,  he  left  it  to  await  relief  from  a  high  tide.  At 
Massacre  Island  he  sharply  and  promptly  defined  M.  de 
la  Salle's  duties  and  position  for  him,  the  royal  commis- 
sary having  begun  the  exercise  of  his  functions  with 
more  zeal  than  discretion ;  Iberville  explaining  that  he 
did  not  wish  affairs  to  come  to  the  same  pass  as  during 
the  administration  of  M.  de  Sauvole,  when  the  com- 
missary pretended  to  command  everything  and  every- 
body, even  to  the  commander  himself.  He  put  a 
garde  magazin  in  charge  of  the  stores,  who  was  to 
deliver  goods  to  M.  de  la  Salle  upon  an  order  from 
the  commander.  Crossing  the  bay,  he  entered  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  and  ascended  it  to  the  site  of  the 
new  establishment,  where  he  found  Bienville  busily  at 


122  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE   MOYNE, 

work  clearing  the  forests,  building  the  fort  and  a  huge 
flat-bottomed  boat,  which  was  to  do  ferriage  duty_her 
tween  Mobile  and  Massacre  Island. 

Iberville  speaks  with  pleasure  of  the  beautiful  nature 
of  the  country,  of  the  high  banks,  the  magnificent 
forests  of  valuable  trees,  —  white  and  red  oak,  laurel, 
sassafras,  and  nut  trees,  and  particularly  the*  pines,  the 
finest  mast-timber  in  the  world.  He  ordered  a  mast 
cut  for  the  "  Palmier,"  which  had  lost  hers  in  a  thunder- 
storm off  St.  Domingo. 

Bienville  was  sent  to  explore  the  Mobile  River,  begin- 
ning witPF  the  little  islands  that  studded  its  mouth.  He 
found  upon  them  only  abandoned  habitations  of  Indians 
driven  away  by  the  same  war  against  the  Conchaques 
and  Alabamas,  which  had  scattered  so  many  of  its  evi- 
dences over  the  beautiful  country.  The  guide  showed 
Bienville  the  island  which  held  concealed  the  figures  of 
the  ancient  gods,  renowned  among  all  the  tribes  round- 
about, —  the  gods  to  whom  the  Mobilians  used  to  come 
yearly  with  sacrificial  offerings.  The  myth  was  that  they 
had  descended  from  heaven,  and  to  touch  them  was  to 
suffer  the  penalty  of  instant  death.  It  took  no  less  a 
bribe  than  a  gem  to  induce  the  Indian  guide  to  reveal 
the  site  of  the  destroyed  sanctuary.  He  did  it  by  walk- 
ing backwards,  and  would  not  approach  nearer  than  ten 
paces. 

Bienville  searched  until  he  found  the  figures  on  a 
hillock  near  the  village,  among  the  canes.  There  were 
five  of  them,  —  a  bear,  an  owl  a  man,  a  woman,  and  a 
child,  made  of  plaster,  the  three  latter  fashioned  in  the 
similitude  of  the  Indians  of  that  country.  Bienville 
brought  them  to  Iberville,  who  thought  them  to  be  the 


SI  EUR   DE  BIENVILLE.  123 

work  of  some  of  De  Soto's  Spaniards.  He  kept  them  by 
him  and  took  them  to  France  with  him,  —  much  to  the 
surprise  of  the  Indians,  who  could  not  account  for  his 
temerity  or  continuance  in  life. 

Six  leagues  above  the  new  establishment  were  the 
Mobile  Indians ;  two  leagues  above  them  the  Tohomes, 
or  "little  chief"  Indians.  Their  villages  were  spread  out 
over  both  banks  and  the  islands  of  the  river,  in  clusters 
of  from  four  to  twelve  cabins  or  families.  Most  of  their 
land  overflowed  during  high  water  for  a  period  of  about 
ten  days. 

At  the  time  of  the  settlement  of  the  French,  the  two 
tribes  numbered  only  about  three  hundred  and  fifty 
men  ;  but  the  many  deserted  habitations  all  around 
spoke  of  an  epoch  when  the  river  flowed  through  a 
thick  population  of  them,  —  an  epoch  which  the  French 
could  but  regret,  for  they  appear  most  estimable  in 
the  accounts  of  Iberville  :  a  laborious,  frugal  people, 
cultivating  their  lands  industriously,  and  keeping  up 
their  peaceful  intercourse  one  with  another  by  means 
of  cleared  roads  through  the  forests  from  village  to  vil- 
lage. They  it  was  who  furnished  the  granaries  of  the 
French  for  years,  and  indeed  proved  their  mainstay 
during  the  famines  which  the  uncertain  communications 
with  France  inflicted  periodically  upon  the  colonists. 

The  famines  of  the  French  were,  however,  periodic 
and  temporary,  and,  as  they  say,  they  could  always 
manage  ;  the  hunger  of  the  Spaniards  was  chronic,  and 
they  seem  to  have  had  no  resource  but  borrowing  from 
the  French,  who  were  thus,  from  the  time  of  their  settle- 
ment in  the  country,  kept  in  the  embarrassing  position 
of  having  to  grant  politically  and  courteously  what  they 


124  JEAN  BAPTfSTE  LE   MOYNE, 

detested  granting  at  all,  and  so  of  maintaining  for  years 
a  rival  whom  they  despised,  in  a  locality  they  coveted, 
—  a  locality  of  which,  without  the  charity  of  the  French, 
famine  would  have  time  and  time  again  forced  the  aban- 
donment. Iberville's  journal  records  that  although 
fifty  barrels  of  flour  had  already  been  given  to  him,  the 
governor  of  Pensacola  now  wrote  asking  for  more  pro- 
visions, —  in  fact,  Iberville  says  the  Spaniards  lived  upon 
him  for  two  months.  The  journal  omits  none  of  the 
details  that  fill  up  the  thoughts  and  days  of  the  busy 
governor, — sending  the  boats  to  buy  corn  of  the 
Tohomes  and  Mobilians  ;  the  rain ;  the  return  of  the 
boats  ;  the  laying  out  of  the  prospective  city.  Four 
days  were  consumed  in  aligning  the  streets  and  in 
making  allotments.  M.  de  la  Salle,  the  notary,  and 
the  four  families  brought  from  France,  were  provided 
for,  and  the  latter  put  to  clearing  land.  The  tanner 
whom  Iberville  had  also  brought  from  France,  wandered 
imprudently  in  the  woods,  and  lost  his  way.  The  usual 
search  was  made,  with  no  results.  Fifteen  days  later,  a 
hunter  discovered  the  unfortunate  wretch  sitting  at  the 
foot  of  a  tree  on  a  beautiful  bank  near  a  trench  he  had 
dug,  at  the  head  of  which  he  had  erected  a  cross  bear- 
ing the  history  of  his  tragic  adventure.  He  no  longer 
resembled  a  man,  the  journal  says,  having  for  twelve 
days  had  no  food  but  water. 

One  day,  some  forerunners  from  Tonty  announced 
his  speedy  arrival  with  four  Choctaw  chiefs  and  three 
notable  Chickasaw  warriors ;  and  all  other  interests  sub- 
sided in  that  of  preparing  an  effective  reception  for 
them.  The  party  arrived  at  night.  By  eight  o'clock 
the  next  morning  the  presents  for  the  two  great  rival 


SIEUR   DE  BIENVILLE.  12$ 

savage  powers  were  selected  and  exposed ;  two  hun- 
dred pounds  of  powder,  two  hundred  and  eight  pounds 
of  balls,  two  hundred  pounds  of  bird-shot,  twelve  guns, 
one  hundred  hatchets,  one  hundred  and  fifty  knives, 
with  caldrons,  beads,  flints,  awls,  and  other  important 
articles  to  the  Indians,  that  swelled  the  total  to  a  con- 
siderable and  tempting  bait.  With  it  before  their  eyes, 
the  Indians  seem  to  have  experienced  little  difficulty  in 
coming  to  terms  with  the  donors.  Iberville  assembled 
them  in  a  solemn  conclave,  and  with  Bienville  as  inter- 
preter, made  them  a  speech  exposing  with  frankness 
the  policy  he  intended  adopting  towards  them,  but 
grinding  his  lens  to  suit  their  simple  eyes.  He  painted 
the  insidious  designs  of  the  English,  arming  tribe  against 
tribe,  until  the  extermination  of  its  natural  defenders 
left  the  country  at  their  mercy.  He  counted  up  before 
them  the  number  of  Indians  who  had  been  killed,  and 
the  still  more  unfortunate  ones,  the  prisoners,  sold  into 
slavery  by  the  English.  He  told  them,  he  says,  several 
other  things  also  calculated  to  destroy  their  estimation 
of  the  English,  and  insure  their  driving  them  out. 

Per  contra,  he  made  the  eulogium  of  the  French,  and 
painted  the  glittering  benefits  to  be  derived  by  the  In- 
dians from  their  friendship,  —  trade  and  merchandise, 
justice  and  protection  without  stint,  and  above  all,  no 
more  bloody  inter-tribal  wars.  Should  obtuseness  or 
craft  of  Indians  or  English  defeat  the  arguments  thus 
eloquently  coloured,  should  the  Chickasaws  eventually  not 
become  friends  of  the  French  and  enemies  of  the  Eng- 
lish, Iberville  threatened  the  representatives  of  that  tribe 
in  his  presence  with  the  arming  of  the  Choctaws,  To- 
homes,  and  Mobilians,  as  he  had  already  armed  the 


126  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

Natchez  against  them ;  and  also,  instead  of  arresting, 
to  excite  the  Illinois  in  their  war  against  them.  The 
Chickasaws,  far  from  proving  obtuse  to  bribe,  argument, 
and  menace,  were,  on  the  contrary,  most  amenable. 
They  promised  all  that  was  required  against  the  Eng- 
lish, buried  the  hatchet  with  the  Choctaws,  and  with  the 
French  formed  all  the  alliance  necessary  to  acquire 
the  cement  of  so  goodly  an  array  of  presents. 

Iberville,  elated,  computed  that  this  treaty  was  good 
to  the  Crown  of  France  for  at  least  two  thousand  Chicka- 
saws, of  whom  seven  or  eight  hundred  were  armed,  and 
for  about  four  thousand  Choctaws.  He  set  himself  at 
once  to  ratify  his  share  of  the  articles  of  it.  Five  Cana- 
dians were  sent,  with  the  returning  Choctaw  chiefs,  up 
the  Mobile  River  to  the  spot  where  Iberville  had  prom- 
ised to  locate  a  trading-station  ;  and  three  Canadians 
were  sent,  with  two  of  the  Chickasaws,  to  the  Illinois,  to 
demand  of  them  the  return  of  their  Chickasaw  prisoners 
and  to  acquaint  them  that  Iberville  had  buried  the  hat- 
chet which  the  governor  of  Canada  had  told  them  to 
raise  against  the  Chaouanons,  allies  of  the  Chickasaws. 
Letters  were  also  sent  by  these  last  messengers  to  the 
Vicar-general  of  Quebec,  Bishop  St.  Vallier,  then  at  the 
Tamaroas,  praying  that  missionaries  might  be  sent  imme- 
diately among  the  Chickasaws  and  Choctaws,  to  assure 
and  maintain,  not  their  spiritual  condition,  but  their 
good  disposition  to  the  French. 

There  was  but  six  months'  supply  of  provisions  on 
hand  in  the  stores  of  the  garrison.  As  there  was  little 
prospect  of  relief  from  France,  and  as  the  governor  of 
Pensacola  confessed  there  was  none  of  his  being  able  to 
return  the  French  loans  to  him,  Iberville  gave  Bienville 


SI  EUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  I2/ 

an  order  to  send  to  St.  Domingo  for  what  was  necessary. 
On  the  last  day  of  March,  1702,  he  left  the  anchorage 
of  Massacre  Island  and  sailed  to  the  harbour  of  Pensa- 
cola,  where  the  "  Renomm£e  "  lay  waiting  for  him.  His 
colony  and  his  brother  never  saw  him  again. 


128  JEAN  BAPTISTS   LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER  XI. 
1702-1704. 

FORT  ST.  Louis  DE  LA  MOBILE,  the  headquarters  of 
Bienville,  became  the  capital  of  the  new  French  domin- 
ion, and  the  young  man  of  twenty-two  the  chief  execu- 
tive, virtually  the  first  governor,  of  Louisiana,  —  a  name 
that  then  covered  three  States  and  a  half.  Even  in  the  re- 
duced extent  to  which  the  royal  names  are  now  limited, 
the  office  of  governor  has  never  been  eminently  dis- 
tinguished for  ease  of  administration  or  laurel-leaved 
emoluments.  But  while  every  holder  of  it  since  Bien- 
ville (with  the  usual  necessary  notable  exceptions  in  the 
near  past)  has  commended  himself  to  the  hearty  sym- 
pathy, if  not  to  the  admiration,  of  the  impartial  observer, 
not  one  of  them  is  more  deserving  the  meed  of  compas- 
sion than  this  tyro  official,  wrestling  with  the  English  and 
Indians,  and  cajoling  the  Spaniards,  for  the  territory  he 
occupied,  fighting  the  suspicion,  distrust,  and  calumny  of 
those  beneath  him  for  the  authority  he  exercised.  Ward- 
ing off  famine  and  disease  with  one  hand,  controlling  and 
guiding  hie  leash  of  turbulent  Canadians  with  the  other, 
dismissed  twice  from  office,  with,  for  thanks,  the  acquittal 
of  a  Scotch  verdict,  he  nevertheless  seems  to  have  con- 
ducted his  administration  through  the  torpid  encourage- 
ment of  his  superior,  and  active  insults  of  his  inferiors,  with 
the  same  stolidity  of  determination  with  which  he  con- 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  129 

ducted  his  pioneers  through  the  freezing  swamps  of  the 
Red  River  country  y^And  it  may  be  added  that  he  left  so 
little  mark  upon  the  written  history  of  the  State  he  made, 
that  suspicion  points  to  some  obliteration  or  destruction 
of  record  by  those  who,  to  secure  the  future  working  of 
their  malevolence,  usurped  the  natural  privilege  of  time. 

According  to  the  understanding  of  Iberville,  based 
upon  information  obtained  from  the  Indians  themselves 
and  from  bands  of  reconnoitring  Canadians,  the  loca- 
tion of  the  different  tribes  surrounding  Mobile  was 
roughly  as  follows  :  Nearest,  on  the  Mobile  River,  as 
has  been  stated,  the  Tohomes  and  Mobilians,  about 
three  hundred  and  fifty  families.  To  the  northwest  of 
these,  between  the  Tombigbee  and  the  Mississippi,  lay 
trie"  villages  of  the  Choctaws,  about  four  thousand  fami- 
I7es7~  "North  of  the  Choctaws  were  the  Chickasaws,  .less 
powerful  than  the  former  in  point  of  numbers,  but  fiercer, 
more  unmanageable,  and  infinitely  more  to  be  dreaded, 
as  they  proved  to  the  French.  Northeast  from  Mobile, 
on  the  Alabama  River,  lived  the  Alabamas,  four  hundred 
families  strong.  On  the  Apalachicola  River  were  the 
lands  of  the  Conchaques,  whom  the  Spaniards  called 
Apalachicolas,  —  a  tribe  once  subdued  by  them,  but 
which,  under  the  harassing  depredations  of  English 
Indians,  were  being  divided  and  scattered,  some  fami- 
lies seeking  refuge  with  the  French,  others  going  over 
to  their  foes  and  establishing  themselves  in  Carolina. 

Bienville  immediately  applied  himself  to  manipulating 
these  warring,  discordant  savage  elements  into  some 
efficient  organization  for  the  French,  directing  presents 
and  caresses,  menaces  and  punishment,  with  his  unfail- 
ing accuracy  of  judgment  in  Indian  affairs.  Patiently 


130  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE  MOYNE, 

and  deftly  he  worked  ;  but  he  had  foes  fully  as  deft,  if 
less  patient,  than  he,  who  could  underwork  ;  and  he  never 
saw  his  Indian  levee  of  protection  nearing  completion, 
but  some  crayfish-hole  in  an  unexpected  quarter  would 
again  let  in  the  floods  of  war,  and  his  edifice  be  threat- 
ened with  demolition ;  the  English  proving  themselves 
.not  all  Captain  Banks  in  Louisiana  affairs. 

Ravaging  inroads  were  equipped  from  Carolina  into 
the  French  and  Spanish  Indians'  villages  and  cornfields, 
and  harvest  after  harvest  was  destroyed  with  well-timed 
ruthlessness.  The  news  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Suc- 
cession developed  the  secret  into  open  machinations, 
and  the  Southern  Colonial  English  received  a  contribu- 
tion from  their  Government  of  a  fleet,  which,  hovering 
like  a  threatening  cloud  over  the  sea-board  of  Florida 
and  Louisiana,  kept  the  Spanish  and  French  stations  in 
a  tense  state  of  apprehension. 

The  Spaniards,  as  ill-provided  with  munitions  of  war 
as  with  food,  knew  no  better  defence  than  to  shut  them- 
selves in  their  strongholds  and  send  out  urgent  appeals 
to  Havana,  Vera  Cruz,  Bienville,  —  the  latter  generally 
the  transmitter  of  the  appeals  to  the  two  places.  Hardly 
a  month  passed  that  Fort  St.  Louis  saw  not  some  bark 
speeding  through  the  waters  of  the  river  bearing  some 
Spanish  officer,  from  St.  Augustine,  Apalachicola,  or 
Pensacola,  with  his  message  of  dire  emergency  ;  and  the 
young  commander  was  forced  to  respond  with  men, 
provisions,  arms,  or  boats,  and  the  case  was  a  tax  for 
which  his  garrison  and  stores  were  poorly  provided. 
Like  Iberville,  he  wrote  to  the  minister  that,  truthfully, 
had  it  not  been, for  him.  the  Spaniards  would  have  been 
more  than  once  forced  to  abandon  their  possessions. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  131 

And  along  the  Mississippi,  wherever  an  English  trader 
could  insinuate  himself,  tribes  broke  into  revolt,  and  the 
torch  of  war,  so  carefully  extinguished  by  the  French, 
would  be  re-lighted,  and  bloody  destruction  spread  from 
village  to  village ;  the  missionaries  and  their  attendants 
furnishing  always  the  first  victims.  And  almost  as  of- 
ten as  the  Spanish  barks,  there  would  come,  hurrying 
over  the  rough  waters  of  the  Gulf,  long-pointed  cypress 
pirogues  from  the  river  country,  bearing  appeals  for 
food  and  protection,  with  news  of  terrifying  fears  or 
more  terrifying  realities  from  the  roused  savages,  not 
infrequently  fetching  a  load  of  wounded,  discouraged 
pastors  fleeing  from  missions  where  their  sheep  had 
turned  into  ravening  wolves.  So  came  Father  Davion, 
fleeing  from  the  Tunicas,  bearing  the  story  of  the  assas- 
sination of  the  aged  priest  Foucault  and  his  attendants 
by  their  Coroas  guides  as  they  were  peacefully  descend- 
ing the  river  to  visit  Mobile. 

Bienville  intrusted  the  punishment  of  the  Coroas  to 
the  Arkansas,  who  gladly  undertook  it,  while  he  pre- 
pared to  inflict  upon  the  Alabamas  what  they  merited 
for  an  act  of  treachery  which  had  incensed  the  whole 
colony.  Notwithstanding  the  peace  solemnly  sworn  and 
ratified  between  them,  they  were  induced  by  the  Eng- 
lish (so  the  French  say)  not  only  to  raise  the  hatchet 
against  the  new  colony,  but  to  do  so  with  a  predeter- 
mined ruse. 

Some  of  their  chiefs  came  to  the  fort  with  such  plaus- 
ible stories  of  the  plenteousness  of  corn  with  them  and 
their  neighbours  that  Bienville,  as  anticipated  in  his  con- 
stant scarcity  of  food,  gladly  accepted  the  opportunity 
of  purchasing  of  them.  When  they  returned,  he  sent 


132  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

five  men,  four  Frenchmen  and  one  Canadian,  with  them 
for  this  purpose.  After  a  lapse  of  some  weeks  the  Cana- 
dian alone  came  back  to  relate  the  success  of  the  savage 
stratagem.  The  party,  it  seems,  beguiling  their  journey 
with  pleasant  visits  to  near-lying  Indian  villages,  had,  in 
perfect  cordiality  and  good-will,  travelled  to  within  two 
days  of  the  Alabama  village.  '  Here  the  chiefs  begged 
the  white  men  to  remain  while  they  went  in  advance 
to  notify  their  people,  so  that  a  suitable  reception  could 
be  prepared.  That  night,  while  the  white  men  slept, 
the  Indians  returned,  and  succeeded  in  tomahawking 
four  of  them.  The  Canadian  escaped  by  leaping  into 
the  river  and  swimming  for  his  life  under  a  shower  of 
bullets  fired  after  him.  A  hatchet,  sent  with  surer  aim, 
inflicted  an  ugly  wound  on  the  arm  ;  this  he  dressed 
with  pine  gum  gathered  from  the  trees,  chewed  and 
applied  as  he  fled  through  the  forest. 

Bienville  prepared  for  a  brilliant  and  effective  cam- 
paign ;  as  it  was  his  first  essay  in  arms  against  the  savages, 
a  success  seemed  imperative  to  insure  the  stability  of 
his  future  relations  with  them.  The  result  curiously  re- 
sembles that  of  his  last  essay,  thirty  years  afterwards. 

Raising  a  levy  among  his  Indian  allies,  he  mustered  a 
force  of  nearly  two  hundred  men.  sixty  of  whom  were 
Canadians.  St.  Denis  and  Tonty  shared  the  command 
of  the  expedition.  There  was  a  grand  camp-fire  held 
in  Mobile,  the  rallying-point,  with  great  feasting  and 
rejoicing  everywhere.  Bienville  says  that  one  would 
have  thought  all,  Indians  and  French,  of  the  same  nation. 
After  the  feast,  several  days  were  given  up  to  medicine, 
according  to  the  Indian  custom.  Then  Kienville  dis- 
tributed guns  and  sabres  to  the  principal  warriors,  and 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  133 

the  start  was  made  in  pirogues.  The  plan  was  to  ascend 
the  Mobile  River  to  the  Alabama,  to  land  at  some  con- 
venient point,  and  marching  rapidly  across  the  country, 
fall,  as  a  surprise,  upon  the  foe.  The  apparent  zeal  and 
protestations  of  loyalty  of  the  Mobilians,  and  their  posi- 
tion of  nearest  neighbours,  advanced  them  to  the  con- 
fidential post  of  counsellors  and  guides ;  their  young 
men  also  were  to  carry  the  baggage  of  the  French.  But 
under  their  affected  bustle  and  hurry,  it  was  soon  per- 
ceived that  the  Mobilians  were  delaying  affairs  as  much 
as  possible,  and  they  succeeded  in  retarding  the  baggage 
three  days  after  the  pirogues  arrived  at  the  landing-place. 
Immediately  the  ammunition  was  distributed,  the  sav- 
ages were  warned  not  to  approach  too  near  the  fire  with 
the  powder.  Unfortunately  two  of  them  forgot,  or  were 
heedless  :  their  powder  exploded  »pon  them,  burning 
them  so  severely  that  they  died  two  days  afterwards  in 
great  agony.  This  was  an  omen  which  the  savage  mind 
could  not  but  respect,  particularly  in  a  war  conducted 
by  strangers  against  their  own  race.  A  great  many  im- 
mediately turned  back  from  the  expedition.  The  march 
proceeded,  and  was  conducted  at  the  discretion  of  the 
Mobile  guides,  who,  faithful  to  their  policy,  conducted 
the  little  army  so  cunningly  that  at  the  end  of  eighteen 
days  it  was  spent  with  marching,  and  very  little,  if  any, 
nearer  the  enemy  than  when  it  set  out.  They  would 
not  start  until  two  hours  after  sunrise,  forcing  the  French 
to  march  during  the  heat  of  the  day.  "  But,"  as  Bien- 
ville  writes,  "  that  would  have  been  nothing  i^  the  Choc- 
taws  and  Mobilians  had  not  deserted  in  a  body,  and  if 
sickness  had  not  broken  out  among  the  Frenchmen, 
unused  to  such  exposure,  heat,  and  exertion.."  The 


134  JEAN  BATTISTE  L1-:   A/OYNE, 

almoner,  the  surgeon,  and  twelve  men  succumbed.  Then 
the  chief  of  the  Tohomes  fell  ill,  and  he  and  all  his  men 
turned  back.  The  few  Indians  who  remained  did  not 
conceal  their  intention  of  soon  following  so  pleasing  an 
example.  In  such  a  state  of  affairs  the  three  com- 
manders decided  that  as  they  could  not  advance  without 
their  allies,  there  was  no  choice  left  them  but  to  turn 
back  also,  particularly  as  their  suspicions  of  the  Mobil- 
ians  led  them  to  believe  that  they  would  find  the  Ala- 
bamas  on  guard,  or  warned  out  of  their  village.  They 
determined,  however,  that  their  vengeance,  more  than 
ever  needed,  should  only  be  deferred,  but  that  the  next 
time  it  should  not  be  at  the  mercy  of  any  Indian  allies. 
Marching  in  a  straight  line,  they  reached  the  fort  in  four 
days. 

After  a  few  days'  Depose  the  new  expedition,  manned 
with  Canadians  and  French,  made  a  hopeful  start.  The 
Mobilians,  who  no  doubt  had  warned  the  Alabamas  of 
the  previous  advance,  were  counted  upon  to  have  also 
advised  them  of  the  ensuing  retreat ;  so  the  expectation 
of  a  surprise  this  time  was  a  guarantee.  Bienville,  Tonty, 
and  St.  Denis  again  commanded.  They  were  more 
successful  in  reaching  the  Indians,  but  hardly  more  so 
in  executing  vengeance  upon  them.  They  made  the 
entire  journey  by  water.  As  they  neared  the  spot  where 
their  companions  had  been  assassinated,  they  discovered 
nine  pirogues,  belonging  to  a  party  of  Alabamas  on  a 
hunt.  They  were  secured,  carried  down  stream,  and 
concealed.  Scouts  were  sent  to  spy  out  the  camp.  It 
was  found  a  short  distance  above,  on  a  bluff  upon  the 
bank  of  the  river.  Bienville  was  for  attacking  it  at  once  ; 
but  his  companions  prevailed  in  favour  of  a  surprise  at 


Uf«X 

S/£(7X  DE  B1ENVILLE.  135 

night.  They  waited  in  their  hiding-places  through  the 
rest  of  the  day  until  darkness  fell  and  until,  through  the 
darkness,  the  camp-fires  dimmed  to  a  dull,  smouldering 
glow,  when  the  savages,  as  they  judged,  would  be  in  the 
fastness  of  their  heavy  sleep.  Then  the  command  was 
given,  and  the  stealthy  advance  began.  There  was  the 
thick  forest,  a  canebrake,  and  the  bluff  between  them 
and  the  camp-fires.  With  all  their  precautions,  a  dry 
twig  crackled  under  some  foot.  A  wakeful  Indian 
called  out  a  challenge  in  his  own  language ;  but  in  the 
dead  silence  that  followed,  he  laid  his  head  down  again 
to  sleep.  The  advance  was  resumed.  Foot-falls  now  fell 
upon  the  half-sleeping  ear ;  the  war-cry  rose  in  the  air  ; 
a  gun  went  off  in  the  darkness,  killing  one  of  the  French- 
men. The  old  men,  women,  and  children  broke  from 
the  camp  and  ran  into  the  forest.  The  warriors  retreated 
slowly  after  them,  firing  their  guns  at  the  invaders.  All 
escaped,  with  the  exception  of  four, —  two  killed,  and  two 
wounded.  The  French  also  had  two  men  killed  ;  and 
for  the  rest  of  their  vengeance  were  fain  to  content 
themselves  with  destroying  the  Alabamas'  camp,  break- 
ing up  their  pirogues,  and  throwing  their  hunting  booty 
into  the  river. 

Bienville  thought  that  the  demonstration,  such  as  it 
was,  had  a  wholesome  effect  upon  the  savages  both 
friendly  and  inimical.  But  he  did  not  entirely  trust  to 
this  effect,  nor  cease  his  efforts  here.  On  his  return  to 
Mobile  he  put  the  scalps  of  the  Alabamas  in  the  market, 
offering  a  gun  and  five  pounds  of  powder  and  ball  apiece 
for  them,  —  a  road  to  self-armament  of  which  the  Choc- 
taws  and  Chickasaws  were  not  slow  in  availing  them- 
selves. The  war  sputtered  along  like  a  slow  fire  for 


136  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE  MOYNE, 

nine  years.  It  was  an  easy  channel  for  French  and 
English  animosities,  and  one  kept  open  with  only  the 
small  expense  of  guns  and  ammunition  to  both  of  them. 
The  Mobilians  were  detached  a  few  years  afterwards 
from  the  Alabamas  by  Bienville's  generosity  in  restoring 
to  them  some  captive  Alabama  women  and  children, 
taken  by  De  Boisbriant  on  one  of  the  independent  ex- 
peditions for  which  he  was  noted  in  the  colony.  The 
Mobilians  claimed  the  captives  as  kinspeople,  and  their 
gratitude  to  Bienville  for  their  restoration  maintained 
them  in  unswerving  loyalty  to  the  French  ever  afterwards. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  137 


CHAPTER   XII. 


IN  the  mean  time  the  fort  and  its  dependencies  were 
completed.  It  is  described  by  one  of  its  builders,  the 
literary  ship-carpenter,  Pennicaut,  as  being  sixty  fathoms 
square,  with  a  battery  of  six  guns  at  each  corner.  Inside 
were  a  chapel,  the  guard-house,  and  officers'  lodgings  ;  in 
the  centre,  a  square  parade-ground.  The  barracks  of 
the  soldiers  and  Canadians  were  outside,  some  fifty  paces 
to  the  left,  on  the  bank  of  the  river.  Later,  on  an  emi- 
nence also  to  the  left  of  the  fort,  was  erected  the  resi- 
dence for  priests. 

In  the  month  of  August,  1703,  the  ship  "  La  Loire  " 
arrived  from  France  with  seventeen  passengers,  sixty  thou- 
sand livres  of  money,  and  provisions  and  goods  for  the 
colonists,  —  a  much-needed  succour.  Iberville,  named 
commander-in-chief  of  the  new  French  possession,  was 
detained  in  Paris  to  accompany  the  next  ship,  "  Le  Peli- 
can," to  sail  for  Louisiana,  so  it  was  promised,  the  follow- 
ing September.  She  did  not  arrive  until  midsummer  of 
1704,  and  she  came  without  the  commander-in-chief, 
who  was  this  time  detained  in  France  by  ill  health  ;  but 
the  force  of  his  influence  at  court  was  evidenced  in  the 
cargo.  Everything  that  a  Government  paternally  solici- 
tous could  provide  for  an  infant  colony  came  on  the 
"  Pelican,"  —  live-stock,  food,  merchandise  (this  to  be 


138  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE   MOYNE, 

sold,  however,  for  the  profit  of  the  king),  a  parish  priest,  a 
curate,  four  missionaries,  a  sick  nurse,  four  families  of 
artisans,  seventy-five  soldiers  of  the  new  Company  being 
raised  in  France  for  Louisiana  by  Volezard  and  Cha- 
teaugue',  and,  most  welcome  of  all,  under  charge  of  two 
Gray  Sisters,  twenty-three  young  girls  "  reared  in  piety, 
and  drawn  from  sources  above  suspicion,  who  knew  how 
to  work,"  for  whose  safe  and  honourable  transport  the 
minister  warned  the  captain  he  would  be  held  respon- 
sible. These  were  the  wives  with  whom  Iberville  pro- 
posed to  anchor  the  roving,  lawless  coureiirs  de  bois  to 
the  colony,  and  domesticate  them  into  respectable  citi- 
zens. All  well  featured  and  pleasing,  they  were  married, 
with  one  obstinate  exception,  within  a  month.  The  ar- 
tisans received  their  allotment  of  lands  along  the  river 
front,  the"  cattle  were  set  at  large,  the  goods  and  provi- 
sions stored  in  the  magazines,  and  the  sun  of  prosperity 
seemed  about  to  rise  over  Fort  St.  Louis  de  la  Mobile. 
But  in  reality  the  "  Pelican  ''  proved  a  poor  mother-bird  to 
her  nestlings,  her  hold  a  Pandora's  box  to  Bienville.  In 
the  first  place,  touching  at  Havana  on  her  way,  or  return- 
ing to  it,  after  the  discharge  of  her  cargo,  for  some  beeves 
and  oxen,  the  ship  brought  in  the  yellow  fever.  Under 
the  circumstances  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  raged  ruth- 
lessly. In  the  month  of  September,  —  the  month  of  pesti- 
lential climax  in  this  climate,  —  Bienville  wrote  to  the 
Minister  of  Marine  that  two  thirds  of  the  colonists  lay  ill 
or  dead,  and  he,  like  his  brother,  invariably  stated  the 
best  view  of  any  subject.  The  '•  Pelican  "  lost  half  her 
crew,  and  to  get  back  to  France  had  to  be  re-equipped 
with  twenty  soldiers  from  the  garrison.  Thirty  of  the 
new  Volezard  Company  died  ;  UongJ,  the  Jesuit  priest, 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  139 

Levasseur,  and,  most  serious  loss  of  all  to  Bienville  and 
to  the  colony,  the  efficient,  the  loyal,  the  admirable 
Henri  de  Tonty  died.  The  "  Pelican  "  sailed  away,  carry- 
ing to  the  Minister  of  Marine  Bienville's  account  of  the 
scourge,  his  mortuary  report,  and  his  demand  for  more 
emigrants,  live-stock,  and  particularly  oxen  for  plough- 
ing^The  captain  despatched  a  brigantine  to  him  from 
Havana  with  the  warning  that  the  English  were  arriv- 
ing at  Carolina  to  drive  him  out  of  Mobile  and  the 
Mississippi.  "  If  they  come,  they  will  not  drive  us  away 
so  easily,"  Bienville  wrote.  His  main  reliance,  like  Iber- 
ville's,  was  upon  the  Canadians.  Bands  of  wandering 
conreurs  de  bois  made  their  way  from  time  to  time  to  the 
fort  with  their  peltry  to  trade,  or  with  nothing  but  their 
curiosity  to  gratify.  These  the  young  Canadian  gover- 
nor generally  succeeded  in  enrolling  into  his  service 
either  as  soldiers  or  emissaries  to  the  Indians.  The 
sight  of  this  growing  force  in  Louisiana  of  their  own  out- 
laws did  not  act  to  allay  the  resentment  of  the  Canadian 
Government  against  what  it  would  persist  in  consider- 
ing a  rival  establishment.  It  cried  out  about  the  trade 
in  peltry,  and  even  thus  timely  was  not  reticent  in  its 
insinuations  against  the  band  of  Canadian  brothers  and 
kinsmen  who  did  or  might  make  profit  out  of  it.  And 
in  the  barely  crawling  colony  itself,  a  general,  or,  it  may 
be,  a  particular,  feeling  began  to  evince  itself  among  the 
Frenchmen  against  what  De  la  Salle,  the  notary,  at  least 
considered  a  partisan  organization  for  the  furthering  of 
the  interests  of  the  Canadians,  —  a  feeling  that  De  la 
Salle  took  it  upon  himself  to  express  later.  (  There  were 
other  feelings  also  to  be  voiced  afterwards,  —  feelings 
which  the  "  Journal  historique  "  and  Pennicaut  and  Bien- 


140  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  M&YNE, 

ville  himself  for  some  time  discreetly  make  no  allusion 
to.  They  give  the  pioneer  and  soldier  history  of  the  little 
place,  narrating  with  pride  every  step  forward  in  their  pro- 
gress with  the  Indians,  and  of  every  successful  trial  of 
their  wit  against  the  wit  of  the  English  and  Spaniards. 
These  other  feelings  belonged  to  the  historically  cele- 
brated Curate  de  la  Vente,  and  they  bring  us  to  the  second 
category  of  the  ill  gifts  of  the  "  Pelican  "  to  the  colony. 
Perhaps  they  had  better  be  classed  in  the  first,  for  in  the 
moral  and  financial  damage  done  to  the  feeble  establish- 
ment, the  infliction  of  this  contentious  priest  upon  it 
was  a  sorer  curse  than  the  yellow  fever,  —  there  is  no 
doubt  whatever  that  the  Canadians  at  least  so  considered 
it.  During  the  ripening  of  the  dissensions  sowed  by  the 
clericals  right  and  left,  the  chronicle  of  the  fort  proceeds 
with  the  account,  which  is  the  same  in  all  new  settle- 
ments in  America,  of  the  efforts  to  establish  some  stable 
political  relations  with  such  unstable  qualities  as  Indian 
politicians. 

The  ist  of  February,  1 705,  tidings  came  to  Mobile  that 
the  Chickasaws  had  seized  and  sold  as  slaves  to  the  Eng- 
lish several  Choctaw  families  who  had  come  to  visit  them 
in  good  faith,  and  that  the  act  of  treachery  had  caused  a 
rupture  between  the  two  nations.  As  there  were  in  Fort 
St.  Louis  at  the  time  more  than  seventy  Chickasaws  of 
both  sexes,  they  were  very  much  troubled  about  return- 
ing to  their  villages,  which  they  could  not  do  without 
passing  through  the  territory  of  the  irate  Choctaws.  At 
their  solicitation,  Bienville  sent  twenty-five  Canadians 
under  De  Boisbriant  to  escort  them.  They  arrived  on 
their  route  at  the  Choctaw  village  about  the  end  of  the 
month.  The  Choctaw  chief  assured  De  Boisbriant  that 


SIEUR   DE  BIENVILLE.    -  141 

they  would  not  oppose  the  return  of  the  Chickasavvs, 
but  that  it  was  only  just  to  reproach  them  with  their 
perfidy  in  the  presence  of  the  French.  Therefore,  the 
Chickasaws  were  invited  to  assemble  in  the  open  space 
in  the  centre  of  the  village,  and  the  Choctaw  chief,  with 
his  calumet  in  his  hand,  began  his  penitentiary  harangue 
to  them.  He  reproached  them  with  their  injustices  and 
want  of  good  faith ;  told  them  if  the  French  took  any 
interest  in  them,  it  was  because  of  ignorance  of  their  real 
character.  The  Chickasaws  listened  presumably  with 
more  uneasiness  than  contrition.  Around,  a  circle  of 
Choctaws  had  gradually  closed  them  in.  When  the 
orator  had  logically  reached  his  point  that  they  were  too 
vile  to  live,  and  therefore  it  was  proper  they  should  die, 
reversing  the  plumed  pipe  in  his  hand,  there  was  no  ap- 
peal and  no  hope  of  escape  from  the  sentence,  which 
was  executed  at  the  instant.  Only  the  women  and 
children  were  spared.  Several  Choctaws  were  killed  in 
the  melee,  and  De  Boisbriant  accidentally  received  a 
ball  in  trying  to  get  out  of  the  way.  He  was  placed 
upon  a  litter  and  carried  to  the  fort  by  a  numerous 
escort  of  Choctaws. 

It  was  a  blow  which  staggered  the  Chickasaws.  They 
sent  deputation  after  deputation  to  Bienville,  praying 
his  good  offices  in  favour  of  peace.  After  a  year's  hos- 
tilities and  losses  had  somewhat  mitigated  the  resentment 
of  the  Choctaws,  and  chastened  them,  Bienville  was  able 
to  bring  them  to  terms  and  persuade  them  to  smoke  the 
pipe  of  peace  with  their  adversaries.  The  reconcilia- 
tion proved  a  mere  truce,  however,  and  Bienville's  hope 
of  uniting  the  two  powerful  tribes  for  the  French  an  illu- 
sion. A  month  later,  the  Choctaws  were  again  at  Fort 


142  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

St.  Louis,  smarting  from  another  outrage  of  the  Chicka- 
saws,  who  had  again  broken  into  one  of  their  villages, 
and  again  carried  off  more  of  their  people.  They  de- 
manded powder  and  ball  of  Bienville,  which  he  granted, 
and  another  war  was  added  to  the  list,  and  counted  to 
the  advantage  of  the  English  in  Carolina. 

A  year  passed,  and  nothing  was  heard  from  France. 
Stores  were  eked  out  with  purchases  of  corn  from  the 
Indians,  and  other  necessities  from  Havana  and  Vera 
Cruz.  Chateauguay  was  the  sea-courier  of  the  colony, 
and  during  the  long  interval  between  the  last  and  the 
next  vessels  from  France,  he  ran  his  two  traversiers 
with  the  regularity  of  a  packet-line  between  Mobile, 
Pensacola,  Havana,  and  Vera  Cruz,  doing  the  postal 
and  carrying  business,  not  for  one,  but  for  two  colonies, 
—  a  business,  however,  which,  as  will  be  seen  later,  had 
another  interpretation  put  upon  it.  His  arrivals  and 
departures  are  par  excellence  the  important  items  in 
the  details  of  the  "Journal  Historique,"  which  gives 
us  also  an  adventure  of  Chateauguay. 

Returning  from  Pensacola,  whither  he  had  been  sum- 
moned by  the  vice-admiral  of  the  Spanish  "  Armadillo," 
whose  frigate  of  forty-six  guns  had  been  wrecked  in  port 
by  a  sudden  squall,  Chateauguay  saw  struggling  off  Mo- 
bile Point  a  brigantine,  battered  and  broken  and  on  the 
point  of  sinking.  Answering  the  crew's  cries  and  signals 
for  help,  he  sailed  to  it.  It  proved  to  be  a  filibuster 
brigantine  from  Martinique,  which  had  been  caught  in 
a  storm  while  doubling  Cape  St.  Anthony.  Its  mast  was 
gone,  its  deck  had  been  driven  in,  it  had  lost  its  fore- 
castle, and  eight  men  had  been  swept  overboard.  Cha- 
teauguay lent  the  captain  an  anchor,  landed  his  crew, — 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVJLLE.  143 

ninety  Frenchmen  and  Spaniards,  —  and  carried  him 
and  his  treasure,  —  seventy-two  thousand  piastres,  — 
to  Fort  St.  Louis.  The  brigantine  sank  the  next  day 
at  her  anchors.  How  much  of  the  saved  treasure  came 
to  the  rescuer  is  not  stated,  although  Pennicaut  de- 
scribes the  filibuster  captain's  gratitude  as  boundless. 
Two  years  to  a  month  after  the  departure  of  the 
"  Pelican,"  Chateauguay  arrived  in  the  harbour  of  Mas- 
sacre Island  from  Havana,  followed  by  the  "Aigle," 
a  frigate  of  thirty-six  guns,  under  command  of  De 
Noyan,  brother-in-law  of  Bienville,  convoying  a  brigan- 
tine of  supplies  to  the  colony. 

The  "  Aigle  "  sailed  away  in  August,  carrying  Bien- 
ville's  long  official  report  to  his  Government,  contained 
in  two  letters,  one  written  before  the  arrival  of  the  fri- 
gate, and  one  during  her  stay  in  port.  They  furnish 
such  a  clear,  succinct,  and  reasonable  epitome  of  the  his- 
tory of  his  establishment  (the  official  documents  of  both 
Iberville  and  Bienville  are  always  admirably  clear)  that 
it  seems  almost  needless  to  attempt  to  add  to  them. 

After  detailing  the  Chickasaw  and  Choctaw  complica- 
tions, Bienville  reports  the  destruction  of  Pensacola  by 
fire,  the  loss  of  the  vice-admiral's  ship,  and  his  assistance 
to  the  Spaniards  in  both  emergencies,  his  being  forced 
to  borrow  food  from  them  on  several  occasions,  and  his 
discussions  with  them  over  the  limits  of  their  respective 
territories,  the  Spaniards  claiming  one  bank  of  the  Mo- 
bile, and  Bienville  maintaining  his  rights  to  both.  Father 
Gravier  had  arrived,  his  arm  pierced  with  five  arrow- 
heads, shot  by  the  Indians  of  his  mission.  Fifty  Cana- 
dians also  had  arrived  from  the  upper  Mississippi,  with  the 
intention  of  settling.  Among  them  were  two  men,  who 


144  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

had  travelled  from  village  to  village  on  the  Missouri  to 
very  near  the  mines  of  the  Spaniards.  They  assured 
Bienville  it  was  the  finest  country  in  the  world  ;  showing 
three  specimens  of  minerals  from  there  to  support  their 
asseverations,  which  they  also  backed  by  the  assurance 
that  the  savages  of  the  region  were  at  war  with  the  Span- 
iards. The  Choctaws  had  made  a  fine  stand  with  their 
new  arms  against  the  Indian  allies  of  the  English.  He 
was  constructing  a  mill,  and  forcing  the  colonists  to 
sow  small  tracts  of  land ;  but  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
general  sickness  among  them.  All  the  coureurs  de  bois 
except  the  married  ones  had  returned  to  the  woods, 
going  in  preference  up  among  the  Illinois,  where  there 
were  Jesuit  missionaries.  There  were  not  enough  mis- 
sionaries in  the  country  ;  but  only  the  strong  and  robust 
should  be  sent,  the  savages  despising  the  pale  and  feeble- 
looking.  Also,  only  grown  men  should  be  sent  to  colo- 
nize. He  proposed  sending  some  Indian  chiefs  to 
France,  that  they  might  see  what  the  country  was,  they, 
so  far,  having  but  a  poor  opinion  of  the  French. 

The  colonists  asked  for  negroes  to  cultivate  their 
lands ;  they  would  pay  cash  for  them.  "  There  were 
some  tribes  who  sold  their  prisoners  for  slaves  ;  but  as 
they  deserted  too  easily,  the  colonists  did  not  want 
them,  but  asked  permission  to  carry  these  slaves  to  the 
islands  to  exchange  them  for  negroes.  This  is  what  the 
English  did."  l 

1  The  inaccuracy  of  the  following  is  patent :  — 

"  Bienville  proposed  to  send  Indians  to  the  islands,  there  to  be  ex- 
changed for  negroes.  If  his  plan  had  met  with  approval,  perhaps  he 
might  have  made  the  colony  self-supporting,  and  thus  have  avoided,  in 
1710,  the  scandal  of  subsisting  his  men  by  scattering  them  among  the  very 


SIEUK  DE  BIENVILLE.  14$ 

These  were  the  important,  but  they  appeared  to  be 
not  the  heaviest,  cares  of  the  callow  governor ;  they 
were  what  he  felt  his  ability  could  cope  with.  There  is 
a  tone  of  hopelessness  and  powerlessness  in  the  follow- 
ing, which  shows  that  there  are  limits  to  Canadian 
hardihood  and  endurance  :  "  One  of  the  girls  sent  out 
had  refused  to  marry,  although  several  good  partis  had 
been  offered  to  her.  The  men  colonists  were  beginning 
to  accustom  themselves  to  eating  corn ;  but  the  women, 
many  of  whom  were  Parisians,  eat  it  with  difficulty,"  — 
which  makes  them  rail  against  Monsieur  the  Bishop  of 
Quebec,  who  had  given  them  to  understand  that  they 
were  coming  to  the  Promised  Land.  The  priest  De  la 
Vente  had  refused  to  baptize  a  child  of  whom  Bienville 
was  god- father,  on  the  pretext  that  he,  Bienville,  was 
talking  to  a  woman  ; !  and  the  priest  refused  to  make 
reparation  afterwards.  De  la  Vente  would  receive 
orders  from  no  one  but  the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  who  had 
appointed  him.  "  One  would  expect,"  Bienville  com- 
ments, "  the  disorders  he  causes,  as  he  had  to  be  recalled 
from  the  Indies,  where  he  was  stationed,  the  inhabitants 
refusing  absolutely  to  have  him."  The  priest  crossed 
him  in  everything,  demanded  to  have  his  church  roofed, 
threatening  to  have  it  done  at  the  expense  of  him  to 

savages  whom  he  wished  to  sell  into  slavery."  —  JUSTIN  WI.VSOR: 
"Canada  and  Louisiana."  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of 
America,  v.  27. 

As  will  be  seen,  the  French  scattered  themselves  among 
friendly  Indians  in  1710,  and  there  was  no  idea  (a  most  foolish 
one)  of  selling  these  into  slavery.  The  above  is  Bienville's  pro- 
position, verbatim,  after  Margry. 

1  For  fear  the  copyist  might  have  made  a  mistake  in  the  word, 
the  compiler,  Margry,  returned  to  his  summary  —  it  was,  talking^ 
10 


146  JEAN  BAPTISTS   LE  MOYNE, 

whom  he  thought  the  work  belonged  (apparently  Bien- 
ville),  although  he  had  several  legacies  in  his  hands  for 
the  purpose.  Bienville  had  invited  the  priest  to  leave 
the  chapel  in  the  fort  and  take  possession  of  his  church 
outside  ;  and  the  latter  had  threatened  him  with  excom- 
munication, and  was  even  near  doing  so,  Bienville  wish- 
ing to  attend  the  mass  which  his  almoner,  the  Jesuit, 
celebrated  in  the  fort.  Despite  the  commands  of  the 
king  to  the  contrary,  the  priest  authorized  marriages 
between  Frenchmen  and  Indian  women,  which  gave  the 
former  warrant  to  scatter  themselves  among  the  Indians 
and  lead  libertine  lives  in  the  woods,  under  the  excuse 
that  they  were  married  there.  The  ill  treatment  which 
De  la  Vente  had  inflicted  upon  the  Jesuit  Gravier  had 
forced  Bienville  to  send  him,  Gravier,  away  (evidently 
by  the  "  Aigle ").  From  Gravier  could  be  learned 
what  sort  of  man  the  priest  De  la  Vente  was. 

The  commissary,  De  la  Salle,  sinned  in  the  other  ex- 
treme. "  He  has  no  servant.  He  waits  upon  himself, 
and  works  the  ground  with  his  own  hands,  —  which  does 
not  comport  with  the  dignity  of  his  office."  Bienville 
had  spoken  to  him  abou^  it,  to  which  he  had  replied 
that  his  Majesty  did  not  pay  enough  for  him  to  have  a 
valet.  The  writer  did  not  fail,  as  no  officer  of  the  time 
ever  failed  to  do  at  every  opportunity,  to  remind  the 
minister  of  his  nine  years'  service  in  Louisiana,  asking 
for  an  augmentation  of  salary,  and  complaining  that  his 
health  was  beginning  to  suffer. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  147 


CHAPTER    XIII. 
1706,  1707. 

LOUISIANA,  with  its  elemental  discords,  was  but  a 
miniature  reflection  of  the  greater  province  of  Canada ; 
in  fact,  the  tropical  ground  was  only  sprouting  seed  of 
Canada's  sowing.  The  governor,  the  priests,  the  royal 
commissary,  and  those  active  skirmishers  in  family 
quarrels,  the  women,  were  engaged  in  no  new  drama, 
they  were  simply  re-enacting  the  well-known  and  well- 
worn  roles  which  neither  time,  place,  nor  circumstance 
seems  able  to  disassociate  from  sex,  clerical  and  official 
position.  With  their  plotting  and  counterplotting,  crimi- 
nation and  recrimination,  Satan  himself  could  not  have 
worsened  the  moral  atmosphere  of  the  struggling  com- 
munity, nor  more  surely  have  blighted  its  first  promise. 

In  Louisiana  a  slight  change  of  the  Canadian  original 
is  offered  in  the  personality  of  the  young,  rude,  unlettered 
Canadian,  who  from  midshipman  and  lieutenant  of  ma- 
rines, had  been  pushed  to  the  first  place  of  a  command, 
whose  entire  character  and  administration  constituted 
one  obstinate  determination  to  maintain  and  increase 
the  grasp  of  country  left  him  by  Iberville.  Bulwarking 
himself  against  the  Spaniards  in  the  east,  spying  out  their 
land  in  the  west,  fending  off  the  English  at  the  north,  keep- 
ing his  channel  of  the  Mississippi  well  open,  scouring  the 
Gulf  with  his  little  vessels,  arming  the  Indians  against 


148  JEAX  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

one  another  and  against  everybody  but  himself,  buying, 
borrowing  food,  quartering  his  men  in  times  of  dearth 
upon  the  Indians,  recalling  them  at  every  new  invoice 
from  France,  Havana,  or  Vera  Cruz,  marrying  the  girls, 
breaking  the  Canadians  into  farmers,  punishing  savages, 
repressing  his  own  bandits,  building,  sowing,  carrying 
out  with  a  handful  of  soldiers  and  a  pittance  of  money 
the  great  Mississippi  and  Gulf  policy  of  Iberville,  —  his 
activity  and  dexterity,  it  would  seem,  must  have  com- 
pelled acknowledgment  from  even  his  detractors.  It 
must  be  confessed,  however,  that  he  was  most  lament- 
ably overmatched  in  his  domestic  adversaries,  and  com- 
bat them  as  violently  as  he  could,  and  did  unfortunately 
too  often  with  their  own  weapons,  De  la  Salle  and  De 
la  Vente  to  this  day  tell  their  story  against  him,  and  to 
this  day  the  biographer  of  Bienville  must  still  be  his 
apologist.1 

De  la  Salle  explains  himself  in  his  letters  ;  a  word  of 
preamble  is  necessary  to  explain  De  la  Vente. 

The  missionary  zeal  of  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood 
in  North  America  developed  (if  indeed  it  was  not  de- 
veloped by)  a  spirit  of  competition  among  the  different 
orders  engaged  in  proselyting  the  savages,  which  some- 
times savoured  more  of  trade  and  politics  than  religion. 
Partisanship  naturally  ensued,  which  infected  not  only 
the  civil  and  military  authorities,  but  the  ecclesiastical 
tribunals.  The  missionaries  themselves  were  not  only 
attacked  in  their  name  and  reputation,  but  in  the  good 
work  for  which  they  were  actually  exposing  themselves 

1  Margry  confesses  that  the  character  of  Bienville,  all  said, 
was  not  sympathetic  to  him  (Introduction  to  vol.  v.),  and  he 
makes  no  effort  to  render  it  sympathetic  to  others. 


SIEUR   DE   BIENVILLE.  149 

to  the  most  cruel  of  deaths,  and  their  good  work  ravished 
of  its  moral  effect  by  the  overt  and  covert  accusations  of 
the  friends  and  members  of  rival  societies.  The  injury 
to  the  interests  of  France  thereby  was  as  irreparable  as 
the  injury  to  the  interests  of  religion. 

The  Jesuits,  always  in  the  van  of  missionary  work, 
;could  with  fair  show  of  reason  claim,  through  Marquette 
and  Joliet,  the  spiritual  territory  of  the  Mississippi  valley. 
Allouez,  at  Kaskaskia,  had  continued  the  mission  among 
the  Illinois  dropped  by  the  dying  hand  of  Marquette. 
To  Allouez  had  succeeded  Gravier,  appointed  vicar- 
general  by  the  Bishop  of  Quebec.  In  addition  to  other 
extensions  of  the  work  of  his  Order,  Gravier  planned  and 
carried  out  a  mission  among  the  Tamaroas  branch  of  the 
Illinois  Indians. 

But  the  Recollets  also  had  a  claim  upon  the  Missis- 
sippi valley.  La  Salle's  monomaniacal  feelings  against 
the  Jesuits  will  be  remembered.  A  Re'collet  therefore 
accompanied  him  upon  his  voyage  down  the  Mississippi 
in  1 68 1,  Zenobe  Membre  ;  and  he  it  was  who  had  the 
honour  of  intoning  the  Vexilla  Regis  and  Te  Deum  at 
La  Salle's  magnificent  "  prise  de  possession  "  of  very 
little  less  than  the  whole  of  the  South  of  the  North 
American  continent. 

The  Bishop  of  Quebec,  Saint- Vail ier,  by  a  prompt 
assertion  of  his  rights,  prevented  the  dismemberment 
of  his  diocese,  which  the  Holy  See  attempted  by  the 
appointment  of  several  Vicariates  Apostolic  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi valley.  Saint-Vallier  also  claimed  the  Missis- 
sippi valley  through  Marquette  and  Joliet,  —  the  one 
a  priest  of  his  diocese,  the  other  a  pupil  of  his  Seminary. 
The  revocation  of  the  Vicariates  Apostolic  followed. 


150  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

The  Seminary  of  Quebec,  a  foundling  of  the  "  Foreign 
Missions "  of  Paris,  then  obtained  from  Saint-Vallier, 
in  1698,  official  authorization  to  mission  work  in  the 
fields  of  the  West  and  along  the  Mississippi  and  its 
tributaries,  projecting  their  first  mission  among  the 
Tamaroas.  The  Jesuits  protested  that  this  tribe  was 
already  their  own.  Nevertheless,  the  Seminary  priests, 
Montigny,  Davion,  and  Saint-Cosme,  arrived,  and  took 
up  their  stations  respectively  among  the  Natchez,  Tunicas, 
and  Tamaroas. 

Iberville,  the  son  of  a  former  employee  of  the  Jesuits, 
was  as  frank  in  his  sentiments  for  them  as  De  la  Salle 
had  been  against  them.  He  established  a  Jesuit  priest, 
Du  Rhu,  at  the  Fort  of  the  Mississippi,  and  seldom 
lost  an  opportunity  of  exaltmg  Jesuit  intelligence  to  the 
detriment  of  that  possessed  by  Re'collets. 

Holding  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  and  established 
at  its  head,  the  Jesuits  solicited  from  Saint-Vallier  the 
exclusive  spiritual  direction  of  Louisiana.  The  bishop 
refused  to  grant  this  to  any  one  religious  order, 
withdrawing  from  Gravier  the  power  of  vicar-general. 
An  appeal  from  the  Jesuits,  complaining  of  the  intru- 
sion into  their  territory,  and  a  memoir  from  the  bishop, 
were  forwarded  to  the  king.  He  referred  the  matter 
to  an  ecclesiastical  commission,  who  decided  in  favour 
<3f  the  Seminary.  In  1 703,  therefore,  Saint-Vallier 
erected  Mobile  formally  into  a  parish,  annexing  it  to 
the  Seminary  of  Foreign  Missions  at  Paris  and  Quebec, 
which  agreed  to  supply  the  clergy.  Their  first  appoint- 
ment as  priest  to  the  new  parish  was  the  Rev.  Henri 
Roulleaux  de  la  Vente.  of  the  diocese  of  ISayeux,  who, 
according  to  Bienville,  was  not  altogether  ignorant  of 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  151 

colonial  experiences ;  his  curate  was  Alexandra  Herve'. 
The  maintenance  of  the  clergy  was  expected  from  the 
king,  and  it  was  fixed  at  one  thousand  livres  a  year 
for  the  priest,  and  six  hundred  for  the  curate ;  but  the 
Minister  of  Marine,  instead  of  paying  or  even  confirm- 
ing these  terms,  expressed  astonishment  that  they  should 
have  been  promised,  "  the  king,"  he  said,  "  not  having 
decided  the  matter  yet." 

On  his  arrival  in  Mobile,  De  la  Vente  found  the 
parish  church  in  process  of  construction,  and  the  paro- 
chial functions  in  the  hands  of  Davion,  who  was  living 
most  amicably  in  the  same  house  with  Donge',  the 
Jesuit,  —  a  new  house,  still  without  doors  and  windows, 
for  the  completion  of  which  the  Jesuit  had  loaned  the 
money.  The  epidemic,  co-instant  with  the  arrival  of 
the  "  Pelican,"  must  have  held  even  ecclesiastical 
bickerings  in  abeyance.  Donge',  as  has  been  said,  was 
one  of  the  victims.  It  must  have  been  during  the 
first  respite  after  the  desperate  struggle  with  the  epi- 
demic that  De  la  Vente  was  formally  inducted  into  his 
parish  and  placed  in  corporal  possession  of  his  church, 
after  the  observance  of  the  required  ceremonial,  —  the 
entry  into  the  church,  the  sprinkling  of  holy  water,  the 
kissing  of  the  high  altar,  the  touching  of  the  missal, 
the  visit  to  the  blessed  sacrament  of  the  altar,  and  the 
ringing  of  bells,  according  to  the  careful  enumeration  of 
the  entry  signed  by  Jean  Baptiste  de  Bienville,  com- 
mander, Pierre  du  Guay  (Dugue)  de  Boisbriant,  and 
Nicolas  de  la  Salle,  scribe,  acting  Commissary  of  Ma- 
rine, contained  in  the  old  parochial  registry  of  Mobile. 

Like  Iberville,  Bienville  threw  his  affections  to  the 
side  of  his  father's  old  patrons.  When,  two  years  after 


152  JEAX  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

De  la  Venle's  arrival,  Gravier  made  his  appearance  at 
the  fort,  bearing  in  his  body,  not  only  the  wounds,  but 
in  his  arm  an  inextricable  flint  arrow-head,  shot  there 
months  before  by  one  of  his  relapsed  flock  (instigated 
by  native  priests,  who  also  resented  an  intrusion  into 
their  territory),  —  the  wise  might  well  have  had  fore- 
boldings.  The  commander's  warm  reception  and  gra- 
cious treatment  of  the  Jesuit  could  not  fail  to  arouse 
(by  that  time  it  may  only  have  needed  quickening)  the 
jealous  violence  of  the  parish  priest.  A  year  later  it 
was  in  full  blast,  as  Bienville's  letter  shows.  Bienville 
accused  the  priest  of  inspiring  De  la  Salle's  attack  against 
him.  If  this  be  true,  De  la  Vente  must  have  been  grati- 
fied with  himself  as  an  inspiriting  source  ;  for  De  la 
Salle's  epistolary  assaults,  insinuations,  and  accusations 
are  a  credit  to  that  species  of  literature  by  which  scribes 
and  commissaries  in  French  colonial  governments  have 
ever  undermined  the  reputation  of  their  chiefs. 

In  August,  1706,  he  expedited  his  first  shaft  in  a  let- 
ter to  M.  Begon,  the  intendant  at  Rochefort,  "begging 
him  to  arrest  on  arrival  a  certain  Lallemand,  merchant 
and  commissary  of  M.  d'Iberville,  who  had  embarked 
on  the  'Aigle'  with  more  than  fifteen  thousand  livres  in 
piastres.  He  had  also  taken  what  he  wished  out  of 
his  Majesty's  stores  and  powder  magazine,  without  ren- 
dering an  account  to  the  commissary.  He,  De  la  Salle, 
had  also  heard  that  Bienville  had  sent  a  pirogue  in  pur- 
suit of  the  pirogue  bearing  De  la  Vente's  letters  to  the 
'Aigle,'  in  order  to  withhold  the  said  letters,  and  that 
the  priest  had  otherwise  cause  to  complain  of  Bienville's 
ill-treatment  of  him."  A  month  later  the  commissary  in- 
dited a  thirty-page  memoir,  sent  in  duplicate,  one  copy 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  153 

by  a  Spanish  vessel,  for,  he  explains,  Iberville  and  his 
brothers  form  a  league  down  there,  which  governs  every- 
thing, even  liberty  of  access  to  the  minister.  The  mails 
were  so  untrustworthy  between  Louisiana  and  France 
that  he  had  been  obliged  to  write  several  letters  and 
confide  them  to  different  persons  on  the  "  Aigle,"  in 
order  to  inform  the  minister  of  the  truth  of  affairs  in 
the  country ;  not  that  it  was  possible,  even  then,  to  give 
the  particulars,  as  M.  d'Iberville  had  sure  ways  of  being 
informed  of  all  that  M.  de  la  Salle's  conscience  would 
oblige  him  to 'write  to  the  minister,  and  he  would  com- 
municate, by  way  of  Havana  or  Vera  Cruz,  with  his 
league  of  brothers,  upon  whom  his,  De  la  Salle's,  living 
depends,  and  they  would  proceed  to  inflict  upon  him  all 
the  suffering  their  revenge  could  suggest. 

The  bane  of  the  commissary's  conscience,  and  in  his 
opinion  the  bane  of  the  colony,  was  Bienville,  against 
whom  his  bill  of  indictment  was  loaded  to  the  full. 
"  Nothing  was  to  be  seen  in  Louisiana  but  poverty, 
dearth,  dissipation,  extravagance,  dishonesty,  and  tyran- 
ny/' all  of  which  seems  to  have  been  furnished  gratis  by 
the  commander. 

"  The  fort  already  rotting,  the  site  of  it  the  worst  that 
could  have  been  chosen ;  it  should  be  abandoned  for  Mas- 
sacre Island.  The  colonists  on  the  bay  had  succeeded 
better  in  four  months  than  those  on  the  river  in  nine  years. 
The  scarcity  of  provisions  was  attributed  to  the  bands  of 
Canadians  whom  Bienville  supported  and  retained,  not- 
withstanding the  orders  of  the  minister  for  their  disband- 
ment.  Bienville  had  brought  back  two  prisoners  from  his 
Alabama  effort,  and  had  burned  them- to  death  before  the 
gate  of  the  fort.  He  had  also  ill-treated  the  wife  of  De 
la  Salle  while  the  latter  was  away  in  Pensacola,  whither  he 


154  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE   MOYNE, 

had  been  sent  by  Bienville  on  business.  Half  of  the  goods 
and  provisions  were  stolen  in  the  transportation  from  Mas- 
sacre Island  to  the  fort,  do  what  the  commissary  could  to 
prevent  it,  and  work  as  he  might  from  morning  till  night 
trying  to  regulate  affairs  as  they  were  regulated  in  France. 
Bienville  was  tenacious  only  in  contradicting  the  orders  of 
the  commissary.  Bienville  took  all  the  game  and  other 
commodities  brought  by  the  Indians,  for  himself,  although 
they  were  brought  out  of  gratitude  to  the  king.  He  sold 
a  deer  at  eighty  per  cent  profit.  The  - traversiers  had 
been  engaged  in  carrying  merchandise  and  peltry  to 
Vera  Cruz  in  the  interests  of  Iberville  and  his  brothers. 
Bienville  himself  had  employed  his  Majesty's  crews  and 
vessels  to  send  merchandise  and  brandy  to  Pensacola  to 
sell. 

"  As  soon  as  anything  is  needed  for  the  service  of  the 
king,  M.  de  Bienville  knows  immediately  who  can  furnish 
it,  and  obliges  him  [the  commissary]  to  buy  it  at  a  price 
of  Bienville's  fixing.  ...  M.  de  Chateauguay  will  not 
render  an  account  of  his  purchases  and  disbursements  for 
the  colony,  but  he  has  great  care  to  charge  the  expenses  he 
has  personally  been  put  to,  which  are  reimbursed  imme- 
diately by  M.  de  Bienville.  .  .  .  Bienville  had  opposed  the 
reception  of  Hervd  as  almoner  of  the  fort,  and  had  given 
orders  to  De  la  Salle  to  pay  a  Jesuit  in  his  place.  Two 
thirds  of  the  flour  sent  by  the  Government  was  lacking  on 
arrival  of  the  vessels,  which  were  loaded  instead  with  mer- 
chandise for  Bienville  and  his  officers,  who  sold  to  the 
colonists,  making  enormous  profits.  Bienville  also  buys 
from  the  king  at  twenty-five  per  cent  above  cost,  and  sells 
to  the  colonists  at  four  hundred.  .  .  .  Iberville  had 
written  a  very  menacing  letter  to  him,  complaining  of  his 
fidelity  to  the  service  of  the  king,  and  suggesting,  among 
other  things,  that  it  would  be  easy  for  him  to  render  false 
accounts  and  counterfeit  the  signature  of  the  late  commis- 
sary, the  Sieur  de  Becancourt." 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  155 

M.  d'Iberville  had  also  retained  tlie  orders  upon  the 
Treasury  for  expenses  in  Louisiana,  to  cover  advances 
which  he  pretended  to  have  made. 

"  I  leave  your  Highness  to  judge  of  the  character  of  the 
man,  who  passes  in  your  mind  for  something  quite  differ- 
ent. I  have  in  hand  the  proof  of  what  I  advance." 

Diverging  from  the  interests  of  the  colony  a  moment, 
the  scribe  speaks  of  his  own  affairs.  He  begs  permis- 
sion to  represent  to  the  minister  that  he  cannot  live, 
with  his  family,  on  his  moderate  salary,  in  a  country 
where  everything  is  exorbitantly  high,  and  he,  the  only 
officer  who  perfectly  obedient  to  the  orders  of  the 
king,  is  not  engaged  in  commerce.  He  hopes  the  min- 
ister will  throw  a  favourable  glance  upon  an  unfortu- 
nate wretch  who  has  sacrificed  a  great  number  of  years 
without  any  advancement,  others,  on  the  contrary,  reap- 
ing the  harvest  of  his  labours ;  M.  d'Iberville,  besides, 
threatening  to  put  another  in  his  place.  He  had 
married  a  girl  of  quality,  recommended  by  Madame 
la  Grande  Duchesse  (the  "Journal  Historique  "  avers 
that  the  second  wife,  like  the  first,  was  a  hospital 
girl),  and  that  his  numerous  family  of  children  ren- 
dered the  Government  rations,  suppressed  by  Iberville, 
a  necessity,  etc. 

Whether  through  indiscretion  on  the  part  of  the  writer, 
or,  as  he  leads  one  to  expect,  from  a  violation  of  the 
mail,  it  is  apparent  that  the  spirit,  if  not  the  contents, 
of  the  letters  became  known  to  the  persons  most  con- 
cerned ;  an  effort  on  behalf  of  Bienville  resulted. 

Father  Gravier  wrote  a  letter,  —  a  studiously  disinter- 
ested and  politic  one,  —  giving  the  news  of  the  colony 


156  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

in  a  general,  casual  manner,  which,  however,  pointedly 
answered  De  la  Salle's  important  items  :  — 

"The  fort  and  town  could  not  have  been  better  placed. 
Fruit  and  grain  grew  well  on  the  soil,  but  the  colonists 
needed  negroes  to  clear  the  land.  It  had  been  proposed 
to  remove  the  town  to  the  mouth  of  the  river,  in  order  to 
be  nearer  Massacre  Island,  where  the  ships  land;  but  the 
water  was  brackish  there,  and  the  establishment  would  be 
too  far  away  from  tlie  Mobilians,  Tohomes,  and  Apalaches, 
who  had  to  be  kept  under  hand.  A  fort  was  necessary  at 
Massacre  Island.  The  trade  in  peltry  would  be  good  if 
the  French  had  an  establishment  among  the  Illinois  and 
on  the  Ohio.  .  . 

"  M.  de  Bienville  was  very  clever  in  managing  the  In- 
dians: he  knew  many  of  their  languages.  He  had  given 
four  leagues  of  land  along  the  Mobile  to  the  Apalaches ; 
he  was  often  obliged  to  give  presents  to  these  savages  and 
to  those  settled  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  fort.  He 
assists  all  the  colonists  who  are  in  need,  and  shares  with 
them  what  little  provisions  he  can  obtain,  so  that  they 
are  all  very  contented. 

"The  garrison  was  very  weak ;  nothing  could  be  done 
without  the  Canadians,  who  were  very  necessary  for 
Indian  expeditions." 

The  letter  of  De  Boisbriant  went  straight  from  his 
mind  to  his  object :  — 

"  The  curate,  De  la  Vente,  had  declared  himself  openly 
against  the  Sicu'r  de  Bienville  without  cause.  I  would 
have  let  them  settle  their  differences  alone,  if  the  service  of 
his  Majesty  was  not  concerned.  The  Sieur  de  la  Vente 
wished  to  persuade  the  colonists  that  the  misery  they  were 
in  for  want  of  food  came  from  the  Sieur  de  Bienville's  not 
informing  his  Majesty  of  the  necessity  of  sending  vessels 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  157 

oftener  to  Mobile ;  but  not  being  able  to  gain  anything  by 
this,  because  the  Sieur  de  Bienville  assists  the  colonists 
as  much  as  he  can,  and  at  any  rate  they  are  contented,  he 
turned  to  the  soldiers,  a  great  many  of  whom  are  sick,  and 
under  pretext  of  sympathy  in  their  sufferings  he  had  dis- 
tributed the  money  remitted  to  him,  through  La  Salle,  by 
order  of  Bienville,  as  a  charity  of  his  own  ;  giving  them  to 
understand  that  he  continually  represented  their  wretched- 
ness to  Bienville,  who  paid  no  attention  to  it. 

"  The  curate  boasted  to  every  one  that  he  would  have  the 
Sieur  de  Bienville  recalled,  and  he  had  the  temerity  so  to 
threaten  him  himself,  with  great  bursts  of  temper,  to  which 
M.  de  Bienville  had  answered  with  a  great  deal  of  self- 
control.  All  of  the  ecclesiastics  who  are  with  M  de  la  Vente 
suffer  much  from  his  ill-temper.  A  man  with  such  a  temper 
is  not  at  all  fit  for  the  establishment  of  such  a  colony.  All 
the  inhabitants  ask  with  fervour  that  he  be  recalled,  and 
there  are  even  many  who  would  have  quit  here  if  they  had 
had  the  means." 

Chateauguay,  for  his  part,  wrote  asking  permission  to 
return  to  France,  alleging  the  usual  convenient  excuse 
of  ill  health. 


158  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
1706-1710. 

IBERVILLE  died  of  the  yellow  fever  at  Havana  on  the 
gth  of  July,  1 706.  Chateauguay,  returning  from  one  of 
his  trips  to  the  island,  brought  the  news  to  the  colony 
the  September  following. 

The  great  Canadian's  last  expedition  was  another  and 
a  necessary  step  towards  the  realization  of  his  policy  of 
French  domination  of  Southern  North  America,  —  a 
domination  which,  with  the  Gulf  States,  as  we  call  them, 
must  include  the  Gulf  itself.  With  passive,  if  not  active, 
co-operation  of  the  Spaniards,  the  English  were  to  be 
driven  out  of  the  Antilles  by  constant  waylayings  of  their 
fleet,  revolts  incited  among  their  negroes,  and  "  filibus- 
tering "  away  of  their  islands.  Iberville's  past  encoun- 
ters with  the  English  seemed  to  warrant,  in  his  own 
mind,  his  self-confidence  regarding  future  transactions 
with  them.  His  proved  intrepidity,  coolness,  emergency 
capabilities,  and  freedom  from  scrupulous  restraints, 
united  with  his  developing  political  force  and  sagacity, 
would  seem  to  warrant  others  in  surmising,  had  he  lived, 
not  only  great  national  changes  in  the  Mexican  waters, 
with  his  league  of  kinsmen  and  compatriots,  but  even 
the  formation  of  a  new  independent  power  therein. 

Barely  recovered  from  the  illness  which  had  hung  upon 
him  since  his  second  visit  to  Louisiana,  he  left  France  with 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  159 

an  armament,  purposing  to  make  a  descent  upon  Barba- 
does  and  other  English  islands  of  the  Antilles,  and  to  in- 
tercept the  English- American  convoys.  Landing  at 
Martinique  for  a  reinforcement  of  two  thousand  filibus- 
ters, he  heard  that  the  English,  apprised  of  his  coming, 
were  already  prepared  for  him,  and  had  taken  measures 
to  prevent  an  uprising  of  the  negroes.  He  threw  him- 
self, therefore,  upon  the  little  islands  of  Nevis  and 
St.  Christopher,  and  captured  them  inside  and  out. 
their  governors,  inhabitants,  negroes,  vessels  in  port, 
armed  and  loaded  merchantmen,  and  levied  such  a  con- 
tribution upon  them  as  inundated  momentarily  Marti- 
nique, his  bank  of  deposit,  with  s-udden  wealth.  After 
this  exploit  he  made  up  his  mind  to  attack  the  Carolina 
coast ;  but  stopping  at  Havana,  where  an  epidemic  was 
raging,  to  take  on  a  thousand  Spaniards,  he  lost  eight 
hundred  men,  many  officers,  and  his  own  life.  His 
death  was  almost  a  vital  blow  to  his  foundling  colony ; 
and  Bienville,  not  long  in  finding  out  the  weakening  of 
his  own  position,  unsupported  by  the  influence  of  the 
feared  Iberville,  wrote  during  the  next  February  to  the 
minister,  petitioning  for  leave  of  absence  and  reinstate- 
ment to  his  old  position  in  the  marine. 

"  It  would  be  very  sad,  my  Lord,"  he  says,  "  if  for  having 
remained  here  to  establish  this  colony,  I  should  be  deprived 
of  my  promotion.  I  hope  you  will  kindly  consider  my  past 
services  and  those  I  am  actually  rendering.  I  have  no  re- 
ward to  expect  except  from  your  Highness,  of  whom  I  ask 
a  lieutenancy  of  vessel.  The  late  M.  d' Iberville,  under 
whom  I  learned  my  profession,  could  have  answered  for 
my  capacity,  particularly  in  regard  to  the  marine.  You 
know,  my  Lord,  that  we  have  never  had  a  patron  with  your 
Highness,  and  that  it  is  you  yourself  who  put  a  price  upon 


l6o  JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE  MOYNE, 

our  services.  The  king  gives  me  twelve  hundred  livres  a 
year,  which  would  not  suffice  for  three  months,  exposed 
as  I  am  every  day  to  the  visits  of  the  Spaniards,  ever  en- 
tailing new  expenses  upon  me,  in  a  place  where  everything 
is  exorbitantly  high/' 

He  again  explains  the  condition  and  needs  of  the 
settlement.  There  was  constant  illness  in  the  spring, 
when  they  should  be  sowing,  among  the  unacclimated 
colonists.  They  could  not,  single-handed,  cultivate 
enough  land  to  render  themselves  entirely  self-support- 
ing. It  .was  the  irregularity  and  delay  in  sending  vessels 
from  France  that  produced  crises  from  lack  of  necessi- 
ties not  produced  in  the  country,  which  he  had  to  buy  at 
the  king's  expense.  He  had  not  been  able  to  build  the 
fort  promised  among  the  Chickasaws,  for  lack  of  men  to 
garrison  it,  and  merchandise  to  trade  with  the  Indians. 
The  lack  of  men  had  also  forced  him  to  abandon  the 
fort  on  the  Mississippi,  and  it  was  important  to  have  a 
fort  there  to  keep  the  Indians  in  check.  Of  the  hun- 
dred men  that  should  form  the  two  royal  companies,  he 
counted  but  forty-five,  of  whose  youth  and  physical  inca- 
pability he  complained,  and  of  those  the  captains  were 
missing,  Chateauguay  being  always  at  sea,  and  Volezard 
not  having  yet  arrived.  He  did  not  know  what  would 
have  become  of  the  colony  if  he  had  dismissed  the 
Canadians,  according  to  the  orders  of  M.  Begon.  He 
reminded  the  minister  again  that  Massacre  Island 
should  be  fortified. 

The  small  bloody  affairs  of  the  Indians  had  taken  an- 
other kaleidoscopic  turn.  Along  the  Mississippi  there 
seemed  to  be  a  general  relapse  towards  natural  barbar- 
ities and  forced  migrations.  The  Chetimachas  about 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE,  l6l 

the  same  time  declared  war  against  their  neighbours, 
the  Touachas.  These  last,  Bienville  managed  to  recon- 
cile, however,  before  they  came  to  blows.  St.  Denis 
was  sent  against  the  Chetimachas,  to  punish  them  for 
the  death  of  the  missionary,  and  also  to  settle  another 
outstanding  account  for  some  Frenchmen  killed  several 
years  before.  He  returned  with  ten  cabins  of  women 
and  children,  whom  he  had  surprised  and  captured  for 
slaves,  and  one  warrior  who  had  boasted  of  killing  St. 
Casme,  whom,  after  consultation,  he  says,  with  his  offi- 
cers, Bienville  had  executed  in  the  open  square  of  the 
fort  by  a  blow  on  the  head. 

He  himself  led  a  hundred  and  twenty  Canadians  and 
Indians  to  the  relief  of  Pensacola,  again  a  prey  to  the 
fire  and  slaughter  of  the  English  Indians.  When  he  ar- 
rived, however,  the  enemy  had  retired.  The  Spaniards, 
aware  at  last  of  the  usefulness  of  Indian  allies,  begged 
Bienville  to  send  back  the  Apalaches,  Touachas,  Pensa- 
colas,  and  Choctaws  to  their  first  allegiance  to  Spain ; 
asking  him  also  to  instruct  them,  the  Spaniards,  in  the 
art  of  retaining  it, — which  was  about  the  last  kindness 
Bienville  or  his  Government  had  any  idea  of  rendering ; 
the  ministerial  letters  according  perfectly  with  Iberville's 
and  Bienville's  policy  of  doing  all  possible  amicable  in- 
jury to  the  Spanish  tenure  of  the  country. 

From  Vera  Cruz,  by  the  same  indefatigable  mail-car- 
rier Chateauguay,  came  the  news  of  De  Noyau's  death, 
—  another  weakening  of  the  family  league,  and  another 
loss  to  the  colony. 

One  small  vessel,  loaded  with  brandy,  salt,  and  to- 
bacco, sailed  on  a  trading  venture  into  the  port  of  Mas- 
sacre Island  during  the  winter  of  1 708,  —  a  notable 
ii 


1 62  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

event.  She  disposed  of  all  of  her  cargo  easily,  but  un- 
fortunately furnished  material  for  a  future  charge  against 
Bienville,  whom  De  la  Salle  accuses  of  selling  appar- 
ently this  same  brandy  to  the  colony  of  Pensacola.  The 
commissary  and  the  priest  were  still  active  in  the  fort,  — 
almost  as  active  as  the  Indian  outside. 

Bienville  wrote  that  the  commissary  refused  to  allow 
Chateauguay  anything  for  one  of  his  voyages  to  Havana, 
and  had  even  had  the  temerity  to  tear  up  the  order  given 
by  Bienville  for  it.  He  had  likewise  some  time  before 
refused  to  give  an  Indian  chief  the  presents  ordered  by 
Bienville,  tearing  up  that  order  also.  The  colonists  were 
unable  to  obtain  from  him  the  money  due  them  by  the 
king,  the  commissary  insisting  he  had  no  more  money 
belonging  to  the  king.  Bienville  and  De  Boisbriant  had 
gone  over  his  accounts  and  had  found  a  credit  to  the 
king  still  of  twenty-four  hundred  livres,  and  a  balance 
from  the  two  thousand  piastres  which  Bienville  had 
been  forced  to  borrow  from  a  merchant  in  Martinique 
to  relieve  the  past  scarcity.  De  la  Salle  claimed  this 
as  an  equivalent  of  the  lodgings  and  rations  due  him  by 
the  Government,  and  for  payment  for  his  trip  to  Pen- 
sacola. Bienville  and  De  Boisbriant  convinced  him, 
however  (so  Bienville  says),  that  his  journey  to  Pen- 
sacola was  for  the  service  of  the  king  and  in  the  line 
of  his  duty,  that  there  were  spacious  lodgings  assigned 
to  him  in  the  fort,  and  that  it  was  not  the  intention 
of  the  king  that  the  commissary  should  draw  rations. 
All  the  response  that  Bienville  could  obtain  from  the 
commissary  was  that  Bienville  was  no  longer  in  a  po- 
sition to  hurt  him  now  that  his  protector  and  solici- 
tor at  the  side  of  the  minister,  Iberville,  was  dead. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  163 

"  I  know,"  confesses  Bienville,  "  that  he  has  written  to 
you  that  I  have  threatened  to  remove  him  from  the  con- 
trol of  the  magazine.  It  is  true,  in  face  of  his  insult,  I 
did  so  threaten  him,  in  the  presence  of  my  officers,  who 
urged  me  to  it ;  but  as  he  has  not  rendered  any  ac- 
counts of  his  office  for  five  years,  I  thought  it  better  to 
stand  him  than  to  come  to  such  an  extremity. " 

The  commander  then  passes  to  the  muscular  adminis- 
tration of  the  spiritual  adviser  of  the  colony.  De  la 
Vente  had  laid  the  chapel  of  the  fort  under  interdict, 
and  had  performed  his  ecclesiastical  functions  in  his 
kitchen,  situated  at  the  other  end  of  the  town,  refusing 
a  house  which  the  inhabitants  had  offered  him.  The 
parochial  church  which  Bienville  had  begun  to  build  for 
him,  and  of  which  he  had  taken  such  formal  and  cere- 
monious possession,  he  had  refused  to  finish,  pretending 
that  it  was  too  small  for  him.  It  had  consequently  re- 
mained open,  exposed  to  wind  and  weather,  and  had 
recently  been  blown  down  in  a  gale.  The  grand  vicar 
of  the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  who  had  come  to  Mobile 
seeking  assistance  for  his  mission,  had  removed  the  in- 
terdict from  the  chapel  and  brought  the  priest  to  reason, 
obliging  him  to  take  the  house  offered.  Many  persons 
had  given  him,  Bienville,  certificates  of  the  "  ridiculous 
manners"  of  the  priest,  some  of  which  he  proceeds  to 
describe  :  — 

"  The  priest  was  a  violent,  passionate,  double-faced 
man,  capable  by  his  talk  of  leading  the  colonists  to  revolt 
if  they  did  not  have  confidence  in  their  commander.  He 
brings  divorce  into  households,  publicly  insults  the  women, 
baptizes  the  children  all  naked  outside  the  church,—  a  cus- 
tom unknown  in  France,  and  which  kills  them  here.  There 


1 64  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

was  not  a  man  to  be  found  who  took  more  pleasure  in 
trouble  than  he.  He  had  written  to  Pensacola  for  flour, 
saying,  wrongfully,  as  the  Spaniards  themselves  acknowl- 
edged, that  Bienville  was  starving  them  to  death.  A 
lamentable  thing  to  show  thus  to  strangers  the  dissensions 
existing  in  the  colony !  Bienville  could  not  relate  all  the 
hard  things  said  of  himself  and  his  officers,  which  the 
priest  had  been  forced  to  retract.  He  wrote  voluminously 
to  his  superior,  with  whom  he  threatens  them  all;  but  he 
could  only  write  falsehoods  and  calumnies,  which  he  could 
not  prove.  Bienville  relied  upon  the  goodness  of  the  min- 
ister to  render  justice  to  him,  and  to  the  colony  that  peace 
which  the  Jesuits  maintained,  but  which  this  curate  had 
entirely  banished.  ...  In  a  country  like  this,"  he  interjects 
with  some  pathos,  "  where  not  a  single  pleasure  is  known, 
one  might  at  least  hope  for  a  suitable  pastor."  l 

One  very  small  cartridge  in  the  epistolary  fusillade, 
perhaps  an  offset  to  Gravier's  shot,  appears  in  an  unex- 
ploded  state  among  the  manuscript  copies  of  all  this 
correspondence.  It  is  an  undated,  unaddressed  mis- 
sive from  the  Superior  of  the  Gray  Sisters,  who  had  been 
sent  out  with  the  marriageable  girls  ;  and  the  charge  she 
makes  against  the  commander  has  the  merit  at  least  of  a 
reasonable  amount  ot  veracity  and  momentousness,  even 
read  as  it  is  after  a  space  of  nearly  two  centuries.  She 
describes  herself  as  being  devoted  to  the  spiritual  and 
manual  training  of  the  Indian  girls  in  the  colony,  and 
states  that  the  Sieur  de  Boisbriant  had  had  the  intention 
of  marrying  her,  but  that  M.  de  Bienville  and  his  brother 
had  prevented  him  ;  and  that  she  was  sure  M.  de  Bien- 
ville had  not  the  qualities  needful  for  a  governor  of 
Mobile. 

1   From  M;irg;  v's  transcription 


S2EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  165 


CHAPTER  XV. 

1708. 

IT  was  nearly  three  years  before  the  parent  country 
again  stretched  out  a  hand  towards  the  colony ;  and 
then  it  was  not  with  a  caressing  palm,  but  with  one 
nerved  for  chastisement :  there  might  have  been  slow- 
ness in  succouring,  there  was  none  in  punishing.  When 
Iberville's  old  ship,  the  "  Renomme'e,"  sailed  into  the 
harbour  of  Massacre  Island  on  the  loth  of  February, 
the  air  must  have  become  sulphurous ;  for  she  was 
fraught  with  some  of  the  thunder  of  Judgment  Day. 
Every  accusation  that  had  gone  out  from  Louisiana, 
returned  from  France  with  a  warrant  of  condemnation ; 
and  for  four  years  the  busy  pens  of  priest,  scribe,  and 
governor  had  been  inditing  accusations  with  lavish 
liberality. 

In  France,  orders  had  been  issued  for  the  arrest  of 
Lallemand,  the  supposed  accomplice  of  Iberville,  and  an 
investigation  instituted  into  the  charges  of  peculation 
and  appropriation  of  public  funds  brought  against  the 
dead  commander,  whose  heirs  were  summoned  to  ren- 
der an  account  of  his  pretended  claims  against  the 
Government.1  In  order  to  remove,  on  this  occasion 

1  In  "  Histoire  de  Longueuil,"  Jodoin  and  Vincent,  it  is  stated 
that  Iberville,  as  long  as  he  lived,  sustained  the  colony  of  Louis- 
iana with  loans  of  large  sums,  without  interest,  the  treasury  not 


1 66  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

at  least,  any  temptation  to  cupidity,  the  officers  of  the 
colony  were  allowed  no  freight  whatever  on  the  vessel, 
all  the  merchandise  shipped  being  owned  by  the  king, 
to  be  sold  for  his  profit.  As  for  the  soldiers,  the 
Minister  of  Marine  had  taken  the  precaution  the  year 
before  to  warn  M.  Begon  that  the  low  state  of  the 
Marine  funds  permitted  the  supplying  only  of  the  ab- 
solutely necessary ;  consequently,  no  clothing  could  be 
sent  them,  as  they  were  to  be  clothed  in  future  every 
two  years.  (The  soldiers  had  been  already  three  years 
without  clothing.)  Of  the  amount  of  money  necessary 
for  expenses  only  one  fourth  was  remitted. 

Here  the  stint  seemed  to  end  ;  of  supersedure,  in- 
vestigation, advice,  reproof,  and  directions,  the  supply 
was  still  undiminished  in  governmental  centres. 

A  new  governor,  M.  de  Muy,  was  appointed,  and  a 
new  commissary,  M.  Diron  d'Artaguette,  who  was  sent 
by  the  minister  particularly  to  report  upon  the  affairs  of 
the  colony  and  draw  them  if  possible  out  of  the  hope- 
less condition  into  which  they  appeared  to  have 
fallen. 

M.  de  Muy,  a  Norman  and  an  officer  of  merit,  ac- 
cording to  the  recommendation  of  the  time,  who  had 
worked  his  way  upwards,  grade  by  grade,  from  ensign 
to  the  governorship  of  Cayenne,  whence  he  was  recalled 
to  assume  that  of  Louisiana,  had  no  opportunity  of  re- 
sponding to  the  minister's  expectations  of  him.  He 
died  at  Havana  on  his  way  out. 

Bienville  received  his  dismissal  in  a  letter  from  the  min- 

being  able  to  furnish  them.  His  advances  for  his  last  arma- 
ment greatly  reduced  the  heritage  of  his  widow  and  four  minor 
children. 


SIEUR  DE   B1ENVILLE.  167 

ister,  who,  without  circumlocution,  informed  him  of  all 
the  charges  against  him  made  by  La  Salle  and  others,  — 
malversation,  peculation,  illicit  trade  in  skins,  and  sending 
a  pirogue  to  intercept  the  curate's  letter,  which  was  not 
received  in  France.  He  was  told  frankly  that  he  was  to 
be  called  to  account  for  it,  and  if  found  guilty,  to  be 
punished  severely.  Subjoined  was  an  order  for  him  to 
return  to  France  on  the  "  Renomme'e  "  as  soon  as  he 
had  given  M.  de  Muy  all  the  information  needed  for 
his  government ;  but  he  was  not  to  leave  without  De 
Muy's  permission. 

The  governor  presumptive  carried  a  provisional  order 
for  his  predecessor's  arrest,  and  voluminous  instructions 
for  his  guidance.  The  instructions  hold  a  careful  equi- 
librium between  respect  for  Bienville's  advice  and  ser- 
vices, and  recognition  of  the  suspicions  aroused  in  the 
ministerial  mind  against  him,  and  the  fear  of  losing  for 
the  Government  any  of  the  benefit  of  the  former,  and  of 
not  gaining  profit  by  the  latter.  M.  de  Muy  was  to  put 
himself  in  thorough  and  available  possession  of  all  Bien- 
ville's knowledge  relating  to  the  country  and  his  method 
of  governing  it,  and  to  follow  his  policy  of  dealing  with 
the  Indians  and  Spaniards.  The  proposition  to  ex- 
change Indian  for  African  slaves  from  the  islands,  of 
which  the  king  approved,  was  to  be  considered  and 
adopted,  if  it  were  true,  as  Bienville  wrote,  that  the 
English  so  exchanged  their  slaves  captured  from  Indian 
allies  of  the  French.  The  construction  of  a  mill  was 
also  approved ;  but  the  money  advanced  by  the  king 
was  to  be  returned,  with  considerable  profits  of  interest, 
to  be  acquired  out  of  the  grain  ground  ;  and  a  propos 
of  profits,  as  it  were,  the  twenty-five  per  cent  profit, 


1 68  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

at  which  Bienville  sold  the  goods  supplied  by  his 
Majesty,  was  not  sufficient,  considering  the  risk  and  cost 
of  transportation.  A  special  injunction  was  added 
against  trading  in  skins  :  "  his  Majesty  is  resolved  not  to 
permit  the  entry  into  France  of  any  skins  that  come  by 
the  way  of  Louisiana,  in  order  to  sustain  the  province  of 
„  Canada,  as  he  had  promised  to  do  when  he  engaged  in 
the  establishment  of  Louisiana.  The  king  wished  to  be 
correctly  informed  concerning  the  exact  utility  the  prov- 
ince would  be  to  France  commercially ;  if  it  were  to  be 
disadvantageous  to  France,  he  would  abandon  it,  with- 
out going  on  any  further  with  the  enterprise.  As  soon 
as  possible,  a  detailed  account  of  such  commercial  pros- 
pects was  to  be  sent  to  the  king,  especially  in  regard  to 
what  commerce  could  be  expected  from  the  Spaniards, 
and  what  riches  could  be  hoped  for  from  that  quarter," 
in  case  of  a  war.  '•  And  I  wish,"  ends  the  minister, 
with  a  mind  for  small  as  well  as  large  interests,  "  that 
you  could  give  another  name  than  Mobile  to  the  place. 
Look  for  one  that  would  suit,  and  let  me  know." 

The  memoir  then  proceeds  to  deal  with  the  issue  that 
had  brought  about  the  change  of  administration,  —  quar- 
rels between  the  governor,  the  commissary,  and  the 
priest ;  and  strenuously  with  the  charges  of  the  two 
latter  against  the  former,  every  one  of  which  was  care- 
fully enumerated.  De  Muy  was  to  inform  the  minis- 
ter of  all  the  facts,  especially  of  the  burning  of  the 
Alabamas  and  the  cruel  treatment  of  prisoners,  and  the 
ruinous  prices  (for  his  own  profit)  put  upon  his  Majesty's 
goods  by  Bienville. 

Between  the  writing  of  this  and  the  sailing  of  the 
''  Renommce,"  additional  letters  from  De  la  Salle 


SI  EUR   DE  BIENVILLE.  169 

had  arrived,  and  the  certainty  of  Bienville's  guilt  be- 
came a  foregone  conclusion  with  Pontchartrain.  He 
added  a  postscript  to  De  Muy,  enclosing  extracts  from 
De  la  Salle's  last,  with  an  order  for  Bienville's  arrest 
and  conveyance  to  France  as  a  prisoner,  expressing  his 
opinion  that  if  De  la  Salle's  charges  were  true,  Bienville 
merited  the  punishment  of  the  guilty.  De  Muy  and 
D'Artaguette  were  together  to  conduct  an  investigation 
of  his  conduct,  and  if  in  their  opinion  the  facts  and 
practices  set  forth  were  proved,  he  was  to  be  arrested 
and  sent  prisoner  to  France.  If  their  verdict  were 
otherwise,  the  lettre  de  cachet  was  to  be  returned  to 
the  minister. 

A  letter  to  D'Artaguette  of  the  same  date,  and  import, 
was  tempered  with  a  little  vacillation  in  the  foregone 
conclusion,  or  perhaps  an  afterthought  of  ministerial  or 
manly  equity  in  regard  to  the  accused.  "  But  I  recom- 
mend not  to  adopt  this  course,  unless  it  appears  clear 
to  you  both  that  he  merits  the  treatment,  and  not  other- 
wise." The  captain  of  the  "  Renomme'e  "  was  informed 
of  the  charges  against  the  accused,  and  given  an  order 
to  receive  him  on  the  "  Renomme'e,"  conduct  him  to 
France,  and  deliver  him  to  the  commandant  of  the 
first  port  in  which  he  landed,  to  be  detained,  awaiting 
further  orders  from  the  king. 

Bienville  at  once,  he  says  in  his  letter  to  the  minister, 
February  25th,  petitioned  the  captain  of  the  "  Renom- 
me'e "  to  put  his  second  officer  in  command  of  the 
province,  so  that  he  might  return  to  France  ;  but  the 
captain  had  refused,  for  fear  of  the  minister's  displeasure, 
and  so  he  had  been  forced  to  remain  in  command.  He 
had  not  been  able  to  learn  from  D'Artasuette  the  nature 


I/O  JEAN  BAPTISTE  ,    .   MOYNE, 

of  the  charges  against  him  (evidently  the  official  charges, 
for  he  had  received  them  personally  from  the  minister). 
D'Artaguette  had  told  him  that  his  orders  were  not  to 
communicate  them,  and  that  consequently  he,  Bienville, 
was  in  the  hard  condition  of  not  being  able  to  justify 
himself.  He  then  begged  D'Artaguette  to  proceed 
alone  with  the  investigation  of  the  charges  preferred 
against  him,  and  to  interrogate  all  the  colonists,  with  the 
exception  of  three  men,  whom  he  specifies  by  name, 
giving  his  reasons.  D'Artaguette  could  easily  inform 
himself  of  the  truth ;  the  testimony  of  the  inhabitants 
would  be  his  justification.  As  for  sending  a  pirogue  to 
capture  the  curate's  letters,  Bienville  had  proved,  in  the 
presence  of  D'Artaguette,  that  the  letters  in  question  had 
been  oiven  to  an  officer,  the  priest  agreeing,  saying  that 
he  was  sorry  he  had  written  what  he  had,  and  no  more 
attention  should  be  paid  to  it.  As  for  the  execut;on  of 
the  Chetimachas,  his  defence  was  the  declara'ion  that 
"  the  Indians  always  kill  as  many  of  their  enemies  as 
they  have  had  killed  by  them,  without  which  it  is  con- 
sidered disgraceful  to  speak  of  accommodation.  To  act 
otherwise  would  be  to  expose  one's  self  to  be  considered 
a  coward.  In  the  beginning  of  the  wars  in  Canada 
there  was  opposition  to  putting  the  Iroquois  to  death  ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  were  sent  away  with  handsome 
presents,  and  it  was  seen  that  they  mocked  us,  treating 
the  French  like  women  who  did  not  dare  kill  them  for 
fear  of  their  revenge.  Monsieur  the  Count  of  Frontenac 
finally  took  the  stand  of  burning  them,  men,  women, 
and  children,  cruelly,  which  had  so  good  an  effect  that 
afterwards  they  did  not  dare  come  in  war  against  us 
without  fear."  Nevertheless,  he  affirms  that  he  had 


SIE  UR  ±5>E'~  B1ENVILLE.  1 7 1 

taken  care  not  to  kill  a  single  woman,  although  the 
Indians  kill  women  with  men,  to  satisfy  their  revenge. 
He  had  always  returned  them  to  their  villages,  with  the 
message  that  the  French  thought  it  beneath  them  to 
kill  women. 

Breaking  away  from  his  personal  affairs,  he  writes 
with  indignation  of  the  small  assistance  sent  after  so 
patient  an  endurance.  The  colony  was  in  consternation 
to  find,  on  the  arrival  of  the  "  Renommee,"  that  no  pro- 
vision had  been  made  for  the  payment  of  the  garrison, 
to  whom  two  years'  arrears  were  due.  The  magazine 
was  bare  of  provisions,  the  men  were  naked,  and  they 
could  procure  nothing,  as  no  one  would  give  them 
credit  on  the  bills  of  the  treasury  of  the  Marine.  For  six 
months  they  had  subsisted  on  Indian  corn.  He  excused 
the  highness  of  prices  with  which  the  minister  had  re- 
proached him,  by  the  difficulties  of  his  position  Li  a  time 
of  scarcity,  and  complained  that  De  la  Salle  would  not 
insert  in  his  estimates  his,  Bienville's,  statements  of  what 
was  needed  for  the  establishment.  "  It  seems  to  me 
that  he  is  more  interested  in  the  ruin  than  in  the  pro- 
gress of  the  colony.''  Although  indispensable  for  expe- 
peditions  against,  and  treaties  with,  the  Indians,  the 
Canadians  had  been  discharged,  as  the  minister  com- 
manded. There  was  no  longer  any  boat  for  sea  service  ; 
the  brigantine  had  gone  to  the  bottom,  worm-eaten. 
It  was  impossible  for  a  boat  to  last  many  years  in  these 
waters,  without  sheathing,  on  account  of  the  worms. 
There  was  no  longer  any  missionary  on  the  Mississippi. 
The  Jesuits  had  a  fine  mission  on  the  Missouri,  and 
there  was  among  the  Tamaroas  a  foreign  missions  priest 
who  had  merit  and  showed  zeal ;  but  he  knew  neither 


JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

how  to  make  himself  beloved  nor  how  to  instruct  the 
savages.  There  was  a  foreign  missions  priest  then  in 
Mobile  who  would  not  go  on  a  mission  for  fear  of  being 
killed  by  the  Indians.  "  I  must  confess  to  you,  my 
Lord,  that  these  gentlemen  of  the  foreign  missions,  far 
from  running  to  martyrdom,  flee  it,  as  one  has  just  done 
here.  Every  day  one  sees  Jesuits  maltreated  by  the 
Indians  without  abandoning  their  missions  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  seems  to  inspire  them,  and  they  never  become 
discouraged."  Proceeding  with  a  stroke  that  demon- 
strates that  the  Indians  were  not  the  only  foes  with 
whom  he  practised  retaliation,  — 

"The  Rev.  Father  Gravier  has  arrived  here  [he  returned 
on  the  "  Renomme'e  "  ]  with  an  order  from  your  Highness 
for  me  to  give  him  men  to  ascend  to  his  mission ;  but  as 
the  whole  of  my  garrison  and  three  fourths  of  the  colonists 
did  not  perform  their  Easter  duties  last  year  on  account  of 
their  want  of  confidence  in  the  gentleman  of  the  foreign 
missions.  I  invited  him  to  remain  here  until  Easter,  so  that 
the  people  of  the  colony  can  have  liberty  of  conscience. 
This  good  father  is  known  here  and  loved.  I  am  sure  that 
not  one  in  the  colony  this  year  will  miss  the  opportunity 
offered  by  the  father  for  performing  their  Easter  duties,  no 
one  failing  in  them  as  long  as  we  had  only  Jesuits." 

Among  other  worries,  De  la  Vente  was  causing  great 
trouble  to  Frenchmen  not  living  in  families,  who  had 
women  slaves  to  serve  them.  Until  he  hears  from  the 
minister  on  the  subject,  he  obliges  the  masters  to  send 
their  slaves  to  pass  the  night  where  there  are  French 
women.  He  again  asks  for  leave  of  absence,  and  the 
payment  of  his  maintenance  by  the  Government,  being 
already  in  debt  over  eleven  thousand  livres. 


SJEUR   DE   BIENVILLE.  173 

In  this  letter  Bienville  advanced  the  idea,  which  ex- 
perience had  ripened  to  conviction  in  his  mind,  and 
which,  however  obstinately  he  maintained  it,  met  unfor- 
tunately with  a  more  successfully  obstinate  opposition 
from  higher  authorities,  that  the  true  initiative  of  French 
prosperity  in  Louisiana  lay  not  in  the  Gulf  ports 
and  in  trade,  but  in  agriculture  and  the  colonization  of 
the  Mississippi  River.  It  was  a  substitution  of  Iber- 
ville's  grandiose  scheme  by  a  small  practical  policy  of 
his  own.  He  proposed  to  begin  immediately,  if  the 
king  would,  once  for  all,  assume  the  expense  of  sixty  or 
eighty  labouring  emigrants  with  their  families,  —  small 
families,  as  children  are  a  charge  at  first.  He  would 
transport  them  through  Lake  Pontchartrain  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi, and  settle  them  about  the  Bayagoulas,  where 
(and  his  judgment  is  good  to-day),  he  says,  are  the 
finest  lands  in  the  country. 

D'Artaguette's  reports  were  not  only  an  acquittal,  but 
a  vindication  of  Bienville  ;  they  read  like  the  common- 
sense  conclusions  of  a  man  of  business,  although  there 
does  not  fail  an  insinuating  notification  from  De  la  Salle 
to  the  minister  that  the  commissary  was  lodged  with  the 
brother  of  Bienville,  and  that  all  three  ate  together  every 
day. 

After  repeating  the  general  items  of  Bienville's  efforts 
among  the  Chickasaws  and  Choctaws,  the  machinations 
of  the  English,  and  the  difficulties  and  hardships  con- 
tended against  in  the  past,  D'Artaguette  paints  the 
condition  of  the  colony,  and  gives  a  better  idea  than 
Bienville  does  of  its  wretchedness.  The  Canadians  in 
service  had  not  been  paid  in  two  years,  they  owed 
money  everywhere,  and  would  return  to  their  wood- 


1/4  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

ranging  life  unless  girls  were  sent  out  for  wives  for  them. 
More  attention  should  be  paid  to  the  seed  shipped ;  a 
quarter  of  the  last  wheat  arrived  spoiled.  Cows,  mares, 
and  stallions  could  easily  be  procured  in  Havana,  and 
brought  on  the  incoming  ships.  Sheep  should  be  sent 
from  France.  There  was  no  longer  any  boat  in  the 
colony,  —  a  flat  boat  had  been  built  to  transport  freight 
from  Massacre  Island  to  Mobile ;  another  would  be 
built.  The  colonists  needed  the  mill,  and  would  pay 
the  king  for  his  advance  in  money  to  construct  it.  A 
fort  was  needed  on  Massacre  Island  ;  the  garrison,  con- 
sisting of  only  ninety  men,  was  kept  in  a  miserable  condi- 
tion physically,  by  the  necessity  of  keeping  up  constant 
guard  duty  there.  There  were  only  eleven  inhabitants 
in  the  whole  establishment  not  in  the  pay  of  the  king, 
and  these  would  be  a  long  time  in  making  a  maintenance 
out  of  their  lands,  unless  they  could  exchange  Indians  for 
negro  slaves,  as  the  English  did.  If  this  expedient  were 
not  admissible,  negroes  should  be  sent  them.  Sooner 
or  later,  —  he  echoes  Bienville,  —  the  establishment 
would  have  to  be  transferred  to  the  high  banks  of 
the  Mississippi.  The  land  on  the  Mobile  overflowed. 
The  ground  lower  down  on  the  river  was  better  than 
where  the  fort  was  situated,  but  it  would  ruin  the 
few  colonists  to  make  a  change  now.  In  the  short 
time  he  had  been  there,  he  had  only  heard  who  had 
appeared  to  him  the  least  biassed  in  the  affair  of  the 
quarrel  between  the  commander  and  the  commissary. 
They  all  declared  themselves  satisfied  with  Bienville 
and  his  conduct,  and  thought  it  would  be  desirable 
for  him  to  retain  the  governorship.  Only  one  of  these 
witnesses  had  charged  that  the  royal  vessels  had  been 


SI  EUR  DE  BIEA'VILLE.  175 

sailed  in  the  interests  of  Bienville  and  his  brother,  and 
that  they  kept  a  store,  under  the  name  of  a  relative, 
in  which  they  sold  merchandise  and  powder  at  ex- 
orbitant prices.  He,  D'Artaguette,  had  examined 
particularly  the  shop  about  which  so  much  noise  had 
been  made.  It  was  kept  by  a  poor  widow,  burdened 
with  four  children,  to  whom,  as  to  others,  merchan- 
dise was  given  out  of  the  royal  stores,  on  payment 
of  price.  He  had  found  in  it  only  a  few  pairs  of 
shoes  and  some  pieces  of  old  iron.  It  had  not  appeared 
to  him  that  Bienville  had  usurped  the  functions  of  the 
commissary,  and  he  was  persuaded  that  the  differences 
complained  of  by  the  latter  were  in  the  main  of  little 
consequence.  In  regard  to  the  game  and  beef  brought 
by  the  Indians,  all  the  inhabitants  agreed  that  Bienville 
had  made  a  distribution  of  it  among  them  all,  and  had 
not  sold  any.  And  —  a  very  apparent  deduction,  it 
would  seem  —  it  was  not  possible  to  carry  on  any  trade 
at  Mobile  without  ready  money,  and  none  was  sent  out. 
The  whole  garrison  was  very  poor,  as  well  as  the  colonists, 
and  all  were  in  need  of  everything. 

The  curate  was  not  the  kind  of  Christian  formed  by 
the  beatitudes.  In  a  doughty  letter  to  his  superior  he 
let  fly  a  volley  of  blows  about  the  head  of  his  antagonist, 
maintaining  everything,  retracting  nothing,  giving  quite 
a  different  reason  for  the  performance  of  their  Easter 
duties  by  the  men,  and  still  averring  that  he  dare  not 
write  in  his  justification,  for  fear  his  letter  would  be 
suppressed. 

De  la  Salle  forwarded  to  the  minister  the  original 
letter  of  Iberville  to  him,  on  which  he  had  based  his 
charges ;  but  its  language  was  found  too  vague  to  sub- 


1/6  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE   MOYNE, 

stantiate  even  a  suspicion  of  dishonesty.  D'Artaguette 
rendered  to  the  minister  the  detailed  account  asked  for. 
All  things  considered,  it  was  more  creditable  to  his 
Canadian  subaltern  than  to  himself.  One  hundred  and 
twenty  men  constituted  the  entire  force  of  the  garrison, 
officers,  soldiers,  sailors,  workmen,  interpreters,  priests, 
and  boys.  The  colonists  numbered  in  all  one  hundred 
and  fifty-seven,  —  twenty-four  men,  twenty-eight  women, 
twenty-five  children,  eighty  Indian  slaves,  and  sixty  un- 
attached Canadians,  who  could  be  fixed  in  the  settle- 
ment with  wives.  Despite  the  dearth  of  food  and  distress 
from  sickness,  the  live-stock  had  been  spared  in  a 
measure  that  proves  better  than  any  documents  the 
patient  thrift  of  the  settlers  and  the  stability  of  their 
confidence  in  their  venture.  There  were  fifty  milch 
cows,  four  bulls,  forty  calves,  eight  beeves,  fourteen 
hundred  hogs,  and  about  two  thousand  chickens. 


SfEUR  DE  BIENVILLE. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

1709-1711. 

PONTCHARTRAIN  appears  to  have  experienced  a 
quickening  of  conscience  on  the  perusal  of  the  state- 
ments he  had  called  for  from  D'Artaguette ;  and  the 
affairs  of  the  colony  received  that  ministerial  looking 
into  which  they  so  sadly  needed.  He  found  out  that 
the  worst  was  true.  The  troops  had  not  been  paid  in 
two  years.  The  money  ordered  to  Louisiana  had  simply 
not  been  sent.  "  It  is  not  surprising,"  he  wrote  to 
Begon,  "  that  the  colony  suffers  to  the  degree  shown 
me,  if  the  treasurer  of  the  marine  does  not  remit  the 
funds  ordered."  The  missing  amounts  were  traced  in 
a  sharp  correspondence,  and  fifteen  thousand  livres  re- 
covered, which  were  ordered  to  be  sent  with  the  appro- 
priations for  the  current  year  ;  but  these  appropriations 
themselves  could  not  be  paid  in  full,  for  the  best  of 
reasons. 

It  was  a  time  — the  period  immediately  following  the 
official  venality  of  naval  officers  —  when  nothing  was 
paid  in  the  Marine ;  consequently,  when  the  royal  navy 
of  France  began  to  sink  to  those  depths  of  poverty  and 
degradation,  and  her  colonies  to  the  suffering  and  ne- 
glect to  which  an  extravagant  government,  overtaken 
by  bankruptcy,  abandoned  them. 


178  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOVNE, 

Deprived  of  his  efficient  arm  of  supply  and  defence, 
Iberville,  with  his  colonial  project  —  one  might  call  it 
speculation — ever  calling  for  the  margins  which  its  natural 
development  required,  and  which  a  depleted  exchequer 
forbade,  Pontchartrain  saw  no  choice  but  abandonment, 
or  transference  of  it  to  the  shoulders  of  one  of  those 
convenient  porters  of  heavy  financial  transactions,  —  a 
company.  He  began  to  look  around  for  one  upon 
which  to  shift  his  burden,  giving  directions,  meanwhile, 
that  the  necessary  supplies  of  food  and  clothing  be  sent 
by  the  first  vessel.  But  even  this  first  vessel,  it  was 
found,  the  Government  could  not  afford  to  fit  out.  No 
company  being  forthcoming,  private  enterprise  was  so- 
licited ;  and  the  usual  eventualities  attending  individual 
efforts  kept  the  matter  in  abeyance  until  two  years  and 
seven  months  had  elapsed  before  the  Sieur  de  Remon- 
ville  could  be  found,  terms  arranged,  and  the  "  Renom- 
mee  "  loaded  with  the  necessities  for  the  waiting  colony. 

In  September,  1711,  she  sailed  into  the  harbour  of 
Massacre  Island. 

If  the  colony  was  in  poverty  three  years  before,  it 
should  have  been  in  destitution  now,  —  and  it  was,  for  all 
that  the  Government  had  furnished ;  but  necessity  had 
not  failed  in  her  teachings,  and  necessity  had  never  a 
better  coadjutor  than  Bienville.  As  a  royal  colony,  the 
place  had  certainly  been  dispensed  from  existing,  and  the 
Sieur  de  Remonville,  had  he  had  an  experienced  eye  in 
such  matters,  must  have  remarked  that  he  had  come  to 
a  very  promising  beginning  of  a  filibuster  settlement,  — 
indeed,  so  promising  was  it  that  D'Artaguette  seriously 
discussed  the  proposition  made  by  a  thousand  free- 
booters from  Carthagena  to  settle  there. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  179 

There  was,  in  such  a  country,  no  starvation  to  fear. 
The  salt-meat  was  exhausted  ;  but  there  was  always,  with 
the  Indians  to  supply  corn,  an  emergency  provision  of 
flour  kept  on  hand.  The  most  serious  anticipatory  ca- 
lamity was  the  threatened  exhaustion  of  the  supply  of 
gunpowder  ;  but  this  was  averted  by  a  timely  loan  from 
St.  Domingo.  Two  or  three  brigantines  found  their 
way  from  the  islands  across  the  Gulf  to  them  :  one,  a 
slaver,  to  whom  the  colonists  sold  some  of  their  Indians  ; 
another,  a  trader,  but  the  establishment  was  too  poor  to 
purchase  the  cargo.  The  captain  put  the  vessel  itself  up 
at  auction,  and  on  the  advice  of  D'Artaguette  the 
officers  bought  it,  in  order  to  have  some  means  of  com- 
munication with  the  French  and  Spanish  islands. 

During  the  summer  months,  in  order  to  spare  his 
stores  of  provisions,  and,  although  he  does  not  say  so, 
to  diminish  the  ravages  of  the  periodical  malady,  which 
seems  to  have  existed  endemically,  Bienville  allowed  his 
unmarried  men  to  disperse  themselves  among  the  adja- 
cent Indian  tribes.1  It  was  a  privilege  of  which  the 
Frenchmen,  all  coureurs  d 'aventures ,  if  not  coureurs  de 
bois,  eagerly  availed  themselves,  and  one  which  must  have 
furnished  rare  results  of  romantic  frolic  and  pleasure,  to 
judge  by  the  written  accounts  of  one  of  them,  Penni- 
caut.  The  political  results,  the  good-fellowship  estab- 
lished between  the  white  men  and  the  Indians  (there  is 
no  record  of  an  abuse  of  their  privilege  by  the  white 
men),  and  the  consequent  ensuing  sense  of  security  and 
stability  to  the  feeble  colony,  seem  not  to  have  been 
sufficiently  estimated  by  the  chroniclers  of  the  time,  al- 

1  The  quartering  of  his  men  upon  them,  with  which  some 
American  historians  reproach  him. 


l8o  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

though  these  results  must  have  formed  the  basis  of  Bien- 
ville's  self-confidence  in  treating  of  Indian  affairs.  Not 
only  personal,  but  hereditary  experience  proved  the 
value  of  just  such  amicable  commingling  of  the  two 
races,  when  the  civilized  minority  wished  to  gain  the 
mastery  over  the  barbarous  majority. 

Pennicaut  relates  that,  foreseeing  a  scarcity  of  pro- 
visions, three  times  he  solicited  the  favour  of  summering 
with  the  Indians,  and  obtained  it,  thanks  to  the  com- 
mander's knowledge  of  his  good  character  and  the  good 
character  of  the  men  he  was  careful  to  select  for  the  ex- 
cursion. His  pen  indeed  dwells  with  such  gusto  on  the 
description  of  this  free  forest  life,  and  under  the  glow 
of  reminiscence  bursts  into  such  an  effusion  of  voluble 
confidences,  that  the  historic  loses  itself  in  the  fictional 
value  of  his  journal.  Among  the  Natchez,  but  more 
particularly  among  the  Colapissas,  on  the  border  of  Lake 
Pontchartrain,  he  lived  what  has  become  the  staple  of 
native  American  romance  and  poetry,  —  long  boating 
expeditions,  days  of  hunting,  nights  of  dancing  and 
frolicking  with  the  young  folks,  around  the  camp  fire, 
under  the  green  leaves.  A  violinist  was  taken  on  one  ex- 
cursion, and  there  was  teaching  of  songs  and  the  gavotte 
and  cotillon  to  the  pretty  Indian  girls,  the  sombre  woods 
resounding  with  merriment,  and  learning  from  them  all 
that  merry-hearted,  light-o'-love  Frenchmen  could  amuse 
themselves  by  learning  from  pretty  Indian  girls  ;  and  the 
always  effusive  adieux,  tear-besprinkled  by  the  young 
girls,  when  the  summons  came  to  return  to  the  fort.  If 
it  was  half  as  charmingly  lived  as  it  is  charmingly  told 
by  the  young  carpenter,  it  must  have  been  not  with 
unmitigated  sorrow  that  the  unmarried  portion  of  the 


SIEUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  l8l 

garrison  saw  the  river  rise  to  a  damaging  height  to  the 
Indians'  corn-crop.  Bienville's  influence  with  the  na- 
tives, his  command  of  their  dialects,  his  —  according  to 
their  standard  —  fair  and  just  treatment  of  them,  never 
forgetting  a  promise,  and  never  forgiving  an  injury, 
prevented  the  complete  success  of  the  English  effort  to 
include  Mobile  in  the  annual  raids  of  their  Indians  upon 
the  Spanish  possessions.  The  Choctaw  and  Chickasaw 
chiefs,  as  vacillating  in  their  enmities  as  in  their  friend- 
ships, were  subsidized  by  continual  presents  into  a  state 
of  at  least  ineffectual  hesitation,  and  their  coalition, 
which  at  any  time  could  have  swept  the  handful  of 
Frenchmen  out  of  existence,  obstructed. 

There  was  an  attack  made  on  the  villages  of  the 
Mobilians  and  Tohomes,  but  the  defence  was  so  brave 
that  by  the  time  Bienville  arrived  with  his  reinforce- 
ments, in  answer  to  his  allies'  summons,  the  enemy 
were  glad  to  beat  a  retreat,  leaving  in  the  hands  of  the 
Mobilians  and  Tohomes  five  prisoners,  who  were  burned 
next  day.  Shortly  afterwards,  spies  brought  word  of  a 
tremendous  armament  among  the  English  Indians,  and 
of  a  projected  attack  on  the  French  settlement  by  way 
of  the  river.  The  fear  that  this  attack  might  be  seconded 
by  one  from  the  sea,  threw  Bienville  and  the  colony  into 
a  state  of  great  uneasiness. 

What  they  dreaded,  the  Spaniards  experienced.  For 
two  months  Pensacola  lay  surrounded  by  hostile  Indians, 
the  garrison  locked  in  the  fort  by  the  knowledge  of  cer- 
tain death  sighting  the  first  venturer  outside.  Their 
only  food  was  barley-bread  soaked  in  water.  When 
that  gave  out,  the  governor  wrote  Bienville,  they  would 
be  reduced  to  picking  up  shell-fish  along  the  shore  for 


1 82  JEAN  RAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

food.     He  asked  a  loan  from  the  French ;   but  there 
were  only  a  few  barrels  of  corn  and  flour  to  send  him. 

Successive  overflows  continued  to  destroy  successive 
corn-crops  of  the  Indians,  until  there  seemed  no  pros- 
pect for  other  nourishment  than  acorns.  In  1711.  Fort 
St.  Louis  itself  stood  under  water.  In  the  extremity  of 
lack  of  provisions,  powder,  and  men,  a  council  of  officers 
was  called,  and  it  was  decided  to  concentrate  forces 
and  means,  and  bring  the  two  posts  nearer  together, 
by  removing  the  fort  colony  nearer  the  island.  The 
transfer  was  made  immediately  by  the  anxious  colonists, 
willing  at  any  sacrifice  to  secure  a  way  of  escape  from 
inland  attack,  to  Massacre  Island,  or  along  the  coast 
to  the  friendly  Spaniards,  and  also  to  be  nearer  the 
incoming  vessels  of  provisions. 

Massacre  Island  throve  and  prospered  amid  all  un- 
toward circumstances,  with  the  sure  persistency  of  a 
port  town.  Inhabitants  drifted  to  it  from  the  fort,  from 
the  country,  dropped  upon  it  from  vessels,  and  like  all 
vagrant  seed,  they  took  root  and  flourished.  Houses 
were  built,  stores  set  up,  trees  set  out,  and  gardens 
planted,  until,  as  Bienville  said,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  see 
it.  And  the  property  accumulated  was  considered  so 
valuable  that  the  loss  inflicted  by  an  enterprising  Eng- 
lish invader  was  estimated  at  fifty  thousand  pounds. 

All  hope  of  the  "  Renommee  "  had  been  abandoned  ; 
vessels  were  sent  to  Vera  Crux  to  buy  food,  if  perad- 
venture  the  governor  there  would  sell  again  on  credit  — 
which  he  had  refused  on  the  last  application  —  when  the 
belated  vessel  arrived.  Although  the  relief  she  brought 
was  mediocre,  Bienville  wrote  to  the  minister,  still  it 
gave  them  courage  to  proceed,  and  freed  them  from  the 


DE  BIENVILLE.  183 

fear  which  was  beginning  to  take  shape,  that  they  would 
be  forced  to  abandon  their  establishment  after  such  an 
expenditure  of  work  and  trouble.  He  put  in  a  plea  for 
the  soldiers,  who  were  so  naked  that  they  were  objects 
of  compassion.  He  had  given  them  some  deer-skins, 
out  of  which  they  had  made  coverings.  And  the  colo- 
nists, he  said,  should  be  encouraged  by  the  reimburse- 
ment of  the  advances  they  had  made  to  the  Government. 
D'Artaguette,  preparing  to  return  on  the  "  Renom- 
mee,"  showed  Bienville  the  hitherto  concealed  instruc- 
tions, written  four  years  before  to  De  Muy,  concerning 
him.  Bienville  merely  mentioned  the  fact  to  the  min- 
ister, without  again  referring  to  the  charges  against  him- 
self, or  attempting  any  further  defence  ;  but  he  ventures 
to  add  :  "  It  is  thirteen  years  that  I  have  been  here.  I 
have  passed  my  youth  and  used  up  my  health  here,  and 
I  certainly,  my  Lord,  have  not  made  any  profit.  Far 
from  it,  as  I  can  prove  to  you,  I  have  been  obliged  to 
contract  debts  to  sustain  the  expenditures  which  I  could 
not  dispense  with  making,  to  retain  the  savages  who 
come  down  upon  me  in  numbers,  to  gain  whom  I  am 
forced  to  pet  them  in  a  thousand  ways  that  cost  money, 
and  the  Spaniards,  who  make  us  frequent  visits,  and 
whom  we  cannot  avoid  receiving,  for  they  sometimes 
assist  us  in  our  need."  He  asked  for  a  concession  of 
land,  in  extent  from  half  a  league  below  his  present 
establishment  to  the  Riviere  aux  Perles,  to  be  erected 
into  a  fief,  with  permission  to  give  it  his  name,  and  also 
prays  for  his  promotion  to  the  grade  of  lieutenant  and 
for  the  cross  of  St.  Louis.  "  After  all  my  exposures  and 
sufferings,  and  not  having  received  a  cent  of  my  salary 
for  seven  years,  I  think  I  merit  them." 


1 84  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

In  obedience  to  the  desire  expressed  by  the  minister 
so  long  since,  in  De  Muy's  instructions,  the  name  of 
Mobile  was  changed  into  (to  a  surety  a  piece  of  D'Arta- 
guette's  wit  at  the  expense  of  the  young  Canadian  and 
the  minister)  Immobile,  that  of  Massacre  Island  to 
Dauphin  Island. 

Arrived  in  France,  D'Artaguette  wrote  his  report 
from  Bayonne,  —  a  characteristic  document  of  blunt 
directness  :  • — 

"  The  soldiers  were  deserting  to  the  English  of  Carolina 
on  account  of  their  misery.  They  would  desert  to  the 
savages  if  the  latter  had  not  received  orders  to  arrest  and 
fetch  them  back.  Two  equipments  of  clothing  were  due 
them.  They  were  naked.  For  the  most  part  of  the  time 
they  lived  on 'beaten  corn  boiled  with  meat.  The  coats  and 
shirts  brought  out  by  the  '  Renommee '  were  spoiled. 
The  number  of  colonists  was  too  small  for  them  to  under- 
take any  considerable  work;  they  were  moreover  ruined  by 
the  extravagance  of  their  wives  [evidently  the  exported 
girls],  who  were  naturally  lazy,  and  had  only  come  there 
for  libertinage  and  idleness.  However,  a  taste  for  trade 
with  Spain  was  developing;  but  the  English,  by  burning 
Massacre  Island,  had  destroyed  all  the  gains  from  it." 

He  reiterates  his  opinion  as  to  the  importance  and  ad- 
vantage of  Louisiana  to  the  French  ;  speaks  of  the  dis- 
satisfaction and  jealousy  of  the  Spaniards,  "  which  can 
be  laughed  at ;  the  only  people  to  fear  are  the  English, 
and  they  can  be  kept  off  by  the  Indians,  and  particu- 
larly by  an  establishment  on  the  Wabash  [Ohio]." 

During  the  winter  of  1709,  D'Artaguette  had  accom- 
panied Bienville  to  the  place  on  the  Mississippi,  between 
it  and  Lake  Pontchartrain,  where  the  latter  wished  to 
make  his  new  settlement.  A  few  colonists  were  already 


SI  EUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  185 

there,  to  whom  Bienville  had  given  tracts  of  land.  They 
had  planted  corn,  which  he,  D'Artaguette,  saw,  and 
which  was  very  fine  ;  and  he  quoted  their  opinion  that 
a  hundred  colonists  could  support  themselves  in  the 
same  locality.  He  concludes  by  saying  that  he  had 
not  seen  the  colour  of  his  salary  for  five  years. 

The  "  Renomme'e  "  departed,  and  the  colony  settled 
down  to  another  period  of  governmental  oblivion.  But 
there  were  mitigations  in  their  lot  which  made  the 
future  more  hopeful  than  the  past  had  ever  been. 

In  1710  De  la  Salle  had  died,  and  shortly  afterwards 
De  la  Vente  had  taken  his  departure  for  France.  Trade . 
continued  to  sprout  on  Massacre,  now  Dauphin,  Island. 
The  peltry  bought  from  Indians  and  coureurs  de  bois, 
which  could  not  be  exported  to  France,  found  ready 
sale  in  the  Spanish  possessions ;  and  garden  vegetables 
and  chickens  brought  in  small  supplies  of  cash  from  the 
ever-hungry  garrison  at  Pensacola.  The  island  itself  had 
added  a  church  to  its  attractions,  —  the  gift  of  the  Sieur 
de  Remonville,  pleased  with  the  flourishing  aspect  of 
affairs  there.  The  Apalaches,  who  had  followed  Bien- 
ville down  the  river,  settled  themselves  on  their  assign- 
ment of  land  near  the  new  fort.  Here,  under  the 
spiritual  charge  of  M.  Herve,  they  built  themselves  a 
church,  and  became  so  edifying  a  religious  example, 
that  the  colonists  used  to  jaunt  out  on  Sundays  and 
feast-days  to  see  them  perform  their  devotions  and  hear 
them  sing  the  Latin  hymns. 

Another  member  of  the  Le  Moyne  family  had  come 
out  to  the  new  colony,  in  whose  fortunes  they  evidently 
had  confidence,  —  De  Sainte-Helene,  a  midshipman, 
son  of  Jacques  Le  Moyne  de  Sainte-Helene,  who  had 


1 86  JEAN  RAl'TISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

^ 

received  his  death-wound  at  the  siege  of  Quebec,  in 
1690. 

The  companionship  of  his  nephew  was  not  an  un- 
alloyed pleasure  to  the  uncle,  as  will  be  seen.  The 
nephew's  first  exploit  was  allowing  his  vessel  to  sink  to 
the  bottom  in  the  harbour  of  Vera  Cruz,  where  Bienville 
had  sent  him  for  provisions.  Fortunately  the  new  vice- 
roy there,  the  Duke  of  Linares,  who  had  succeeded  to 
the  Duke  of  Albuquerque,  was  anxious  to  be  on  good 
terms  with  the  French,  and  he  replaced  the  lost  boat 
with  a  brigantine,  pretending  that  his  delay  in  furnish- 
ing the  provisions  had  been  the  cause  of  the  accident. 
In  the  spring  of  1712,  Bienville  finally  had  the  satis- 
faction, not  only  of  bringing  the  Alabamas  to  terms,  but 
also  of  including  all  his  'Indian  allies  in  one  general 
peace. 


SIEUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  l8/ 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

1712,  1713. 

THE  efforts  of  Pontchartrain  which  had  procured  the 
temporary  relief  of  a  Remonville  were  further  successful. 
A  rich  merchant,  the  Sieur  Antoine  de  Cro/at,  a  capi- 
talist and  moneyed  favourite  of  the  court,  after  a  two- 
years'  negotiation  was  induced  to  relieve  his  royal 
master  of  the  burdensome  colony  for  what  profit  he 
could  draw  out  of  it,  for  the  space  of  fifteen  successive 
years.  The  charter  of  the  trading  privilege  as  it  was 
called,  bristled  with  provisions  and  stipulations  of  all 
kinds  for  all  manner  of  protection  to  the  two  contract- 
ants  ;  but  to  even  a  casual  reader  of  Bienville's  and 
D'Artaguette's  official  reports,  they  read  like  a  handsome 
ceremonial  preceding  the  shearing  of  a  lamb.  D'Ar- 
taguette's last  report  was  dated  Paris,  Sept.  8,  1712. 
In  face  of  it,  in  despite  of  it,  Crozat's  charter  was  signed 
on  September  i4th,  but  six  days  afterwards.  Crozat, 
however,  was  not  the  only  one  to  be  pitied  in  this  royal 
bargain.  The  king  was  to  maintain  the  necessary  mili- 
tary force  in  the  country ;  civil  affairs  were  to  be  con- 
fided to  a  council,  as  in  the  islands  of  St.  Domingo  and 
Martinique.  Crozat  was  to  be  represented  by  three 
commissioners. 

Bienville,  without  reference  to  the  accusations  against 
him,  his  vindication,  or  his  appeals  for  leave  of  absence, 


1 88  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

was  unceremoniously  assigned  to  what  might  be  called 
the  Indian  department,  —  a  position  whose  responsibili- 
ties were  sharp  enough  to  define  themselves,  but  whose 
limitations  were  left  to  the  uncertainties  of  future  indi- 
vidual interpretation.  Over  all  was  to  rule  the  succes- 
sor of  De  Muy,  La  Motte  Cadillac,  who  had  consumed 
the  long  interval  since  his  appointment  in  endeavouring 
to  reach  his  distant  command,  a  failure  by  land,  necessi- 
tating a  journey  to  France,  and  sailing  thence.  To 
him  Crozat  promptly  attached  a  lien  in  the  shape  of  an 
interest  in  his  trading  privilege. 

In  the  policy  to  be  carried  out,  the  minister  prescribed 
to  his  substitute  an  extract  from  Iberville's  and  Bien- 
ville's  neglected  scheme.  Five  posts  were  designated 
to  be  established  and  maintained,  —  one  at  Dauphin 
Island,  where  the  governor  was  to  reside  in  future,  one 
at  Mobile,  one  at  the  head  of  Mobile  River,  one  on  the 
Ohio,  and  one  at  Natchez,  to  be  called  Rosalie  (after 
the  Countess  of  Pontchartrain),  — which,  with  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  all  its  affluents  and  effluents,  was  to  be 
under  the  command  of  Bienville,  who  was  also  to  have 
the  disposition  of  one  half  of  the  funds  set  aside  for 
presents  to  the  Indians. 

In  June,  1713,  the  "Baron  de  la  Fosse,"  of  forty 
guns,  safely  brought  into  harbour  the  new  installation, 
personal,  financial,  and  political.  A  more  careful  in- 
stallation of  personal,  financial,  and  political  disorder 
was  never  accomplished  by  even  France  in  colonial 
history. 

The  object  of  Crozat  was  trade,  not  with  Louisiana, 
but  with  the  Spanish  possessions  ;  his  methods  were  the 
selfish  ones  of  the  alien  monopolist.  His  intention  was 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  189 

to  do  for  himself  what  Bienville  and  Iberville  were  try- 
ing to  do  in  the  interests  of  the  colony.  He  pro- 
posed establishing  a  warehouse  for  his  merchandise  at 
Dauphin  Island,  and  a  line  of  trading  brigantines  to 
touch  at  all  the  Spanish  ports  between  Pensacola,  Vera 
Cruz,  and  the  Campeche  coast.  It  was  a  project  of 
which  the  approaching  peace  (treaty  of  Utrecht)  seemed 
to  make  the  success  plausible.  But  the  same  peace, 
which  guaranteed  his  ships,  liberated  also  the  merchant 
marine  of  England.  Not  only  this,  the  first  trading 
nation,  also  the  first  treaty-making  nation,  of  the  world 
secured  by  this  same  peace,  upon  which  Crozat  rested 
his  hopes,  not  only  the  closing  of  these  same  ports  to 
French  vessels,  but  the  monopoly  of  the  slave-trade. 
(Jrozat's  charter,  before  he  could  put  it  into  execution, 
was  made,  in  fact,  waste  paper.  His  colony "Te turned  his 
indifference  in  kind,  and  frustrated  as  much  as  possible 
his  extortionate  attempts  upon  it  by  "  filibustering  "  and 
smuggling.  It  was  a  losing  fight,  from  the  arrival  of  the 
"  Baron  de  la  Fosse,"  to  principal  and  accessories. 

Gascon  by  birth  and  by  qualities,  one  may  say,  Ca- 
dillac had  been,  if  not  one  of  the  foremost,  one  of  the 
prominent  French  pioneers  in  America  for  twenty  years. 
Indefatigable,  shrewd,  clever,  he  had,  according  to  con- 
temporary portraiture  of  him,  not  only  ideas  enough  to 
equip  himself  with  an  Indian  policy,  a  military  policy,  a 
regulation-of-royal-and-ecclesiastical-povvers  policy,  and 
a  colonization  policy,  but  he  had  also  been  gifted  with 
abundant  strength  of  body  and  mind,  tongue  and  pen,  to 
enforce  the  same.  He  was  a  proteg6  of  Frontenac,  con- 
sequently an  enemy  of  the  Jesuits,  against  whom  he 
would  fire  a  shot  at  any  time  in  any  of  his  policies. 


I9O  JEAN   BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

With  Iberville,  he  held  that  the  great  rivers  running  north 
and  south  must  be  held  to  France,  if  France  wished  to 
hold  her  American  possessions ;  and  that  New  Orleans, 
Quebec,  and  his  city,  Detroit,  were  to  be  her  sheet- 
anchors  in  the  continent.  The  activity  and  enthusiasm 
which  Cadillac  threw  into  his  services,  his  experiences, 
his  studies,  his  reflections,  his  whole  self,  had  secured 
him  rapid  advancement  and  solid  recognition.  An  able 
manager  of  Indian  affairs,  reputed  to  be  one  of  the 
ablest ;  a  veteran,  if  ever  there  was  one,  in  the  interne- 
cine strife  between  Church  and  State  ;  a  post-graduate 
in  official  complications,  having  had  his  own  personal 
experiences  of  accusations,  trials,  condemnations,  inves- 
tigations, and  acquittals,  —  he  had,  in  one  word,  the 
whole  colonial  question,  general  and  particular,  at  his 
fingers'  ends.  His  appointment,  it  would  be  supposed, 
would  have  been  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  administrative 
wisdom.  His  failure,  however,  might  have  been  read  in 
his  very  recommendations.  He  had  too  many  policies, 
too  much  experience  ;  he  knew  too  much  to  learn  more, 
and  too  little  for  a  different  sphere  and  different  circum- 
stances. The  result,  as  Louisiana  experienced,  was  a 
middle-aged  obstinacy  which  not  only  ignored  other 
information,  but  utterly  despised  the  possessors  of  it. 

Like  an  old  practitioner  he  went  to  work  at  Bienville 
and  his  colony,  shaking,  twisting,  turning  them  until 
what  he  was  determined  to  find  in  them  was  demon- 
strated beyond  peradventure  or  shadow  of  turning  in  his 
mind,  and  then  he  enunciated  (letter  to  minister,  25,  26 
October,  1713)  his  opinion,  or  rather  his  contempt,  of 
the  whole  affair  committed  to  his  charge.  His  rough 
frankness  has  at  least  the  merit  of  honesty,  for  personally 


SI  EUR  DE    BIENVILLE.  1 91 

his  profit  must  have  lain  at  least  with  a  temporary  pallia- 
tion of  what  he  considered  the  truth.  This  is  his  version 
of  Bienville's  pretty  establishment  of  Dauphin  Island  : 

"He  had  counted  upon  it  one  dozen  fig-trees,  which  were 
very  handsome;  three 'wild  pear-trees  and  a  little  plum-tree 
about  three  feet  high,  which  had  seven  poor  plums  upon  it ; 
about  thirty  feet  of  vine,  bearing  in  all  nine  bunches  of 
grapes,  some  of  them  dried  or  rotting,  the  rest  only  a  little 
ripe ;  and  forty  plants  of  French  melons  and  pumpkins. 
That  was  the  Paradise,  the  Pomona,  the  Fortunate  Isles  of 
the  Relations  !  Pure  fables !  " 

With  small  regard  for  Crozat's  peace  of  mind,  he  pro- 
ceeds, not  only  to  damn  any  agricultural  hopes  from  the 
soil,  but  the  whole  country  itself,  in  toto,  with  the  people 
it  contained,  —  red,  black,  and  white.  But  his  descrip- 
tion belies  his  desire,  or  rather  temper  :  — 

"I  have  already  said  that  if  the  inhabitants  have  not 
cultivated  tobacco  and  indigo,  it  is  because  they  do  not 
make  anything  by  this  culture.  They  have  only  been  able 
to  raise  corn  and  vegetables.  During  the  first  years  these 
harvests  were  abandoned.  This  permitted  them  to  raise 
hogs  and  fowls,  and  to  live  passably.  But  during  the  last 
three  years  neither  vegetables  nor  corn  have  come,  either 
by  excess  of  wet  or  drought,  and  the  suffering  has  been 
very  great.  All  the  commerce,  heretofore,  has  only  con- 
sisted of  timber,  deer,  bear,  and  wild-cat  skins.  The 
coureurs  de  bois  get  the  skins  and  slaves  from  the  Indians, 
and  sell  them  to  the  colonists.  The  skins  were  resold  to 
the  Spaniards  at  Pensacola  or  to  the  vessels  that  came 
from  the  islands;  the  slaves  were  employed  in  sawing 
timber  and  clearing  the  land.  The  colonists  carried  to 


192  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

Pensacola,  where  there  was  no  clearing,  their  vegetables 
and  corn,  and  this  trade  threw  a  little  money  into  the  colony, 
and   gave   the   colonists   the   means   of  buying  from   the 
islands.     This  is  all,  and  the  only  commerce  here  ;  and  it 
lias  not  enriched  the  colonists,  for  they  are  very  poor,  but 
it  has  enabled  them  to  subsist.   ...   If  there  is  anything  to 
wonder  at,  it  is  that  with  so  much  poverty  and  so  little  com- 
merce the  inhabitants  should  have  consented  to  remain  in 
the  colony.     But  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  it  is  recog- 
nized that  the  land  will  produce  indigo,  silk,  and  tobacco, 
although   the   colonists  have  not  cultivated   them,  out  of 
ignorance  of  their  culture,  and  fear  that  the  colony  would 
be  abandoned.   .  .  .  They  awaited  peace  with  impatience, 
persuaded  that  when  peace  was  made,  vessels  would  come 
which  would  give  a  sustenance  to  commerce,  and  that  by 
the  way  the  garrison  would  then  be  treated,  some  conclu- 
sions might  be  reached  as  to  the  ulterior  views  of  the  Gov- 
ernment in  regard  to  the  establishment.  .  .  .  According  to 
the  proverb,  '  bad  country,  bad  people,'  one  can  say  that 
there  is  a  collection  here  formed  from  the  dregs  of  Canada, 
gens  de  sac  et  de  corde,  without  respect  for  religion  or  for 
government,  addicted  to  vice,  and  principally  to  Indian 
women,  whom  they  prefer  to  French  women.      It  is  very 
difficult  to  remedy  it,  when  his  Majesty  desires  that  they 
should  be  governed  with  mildness,  and  when  he  wishes  a 
governor  to  comport  himself  so  that  the  inhabitants  shall 
make  no  complaint  against  him.     On  arriving,  I  found  the 
whole  garrison  in  the  woods  among  the  savages,  who  pro- 
vided for  them  with  their  guns,  and  thus  for  want,  not  only 
of  bread,  but  of  corn,  the  harvests  having  failed  for  two 
consecutive  years ;  and  even  if  it  had  not  failed,  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  the  harvest  saves  over  here  only  from 
one  year  to  the  other,  the  vermin  ruining  it  entirely.     The 
lieutenant  of  the  king,  Bienville,  came  here  at  the  age  of 
eighteen,  without  having  served  either  in  France  or  Canada. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  193 

His  brother,  Chateauguay,  came  here  still  younger,  as  well 
Major  Boisbriant.  There  was  no  one  here  of  the  profession 
to  train  the  soldiers,  therefore  they  are  badly  disciplined. 
.  .  .  The  colony  could  not  be  poorer  than  it  is  at  present. 
The  Canadians  who  are  here  are  returning  to  Canada,  and 
nevertheless  without  them  no  enterprise  is  possible.  Fifty 
of  them  should  be  maintained  in  the  service  of  the  king  to 
make  expeditions.  If  God  gives  me  health,  I  shall  try  to 
elevate  the  colony,  which  is  not  worth  a  straw  at  present. 
But  if  it  is  to  be  preserved,  at  least  one  hundred  new  soldiers 
are  needed,  well  equipped  and  provided  with  good  bread 
and  meat.  \Ve  need  Canadians  and  sailors ;  and  among 
the  troupes  there  must  be  labourers,  masons,  stone-cutters, 
carpenters,  millers.  [He  asked  for  a  church.]  I  think 
the  inhabitants  would  be  delighted  not  to  have  one.  Ac- 
cording to  the  priests  and  missionaries,  the  greater  portion 
of  them  have  not  approached  the  sacraments  for  seven  or 
eight  years.  The  soldiers  have  not  performed  their  Easter 
duties,  following  the  example  of  Bienville,  their  command- 
ant, Boisbriant,  their  major,  Chateauguay,  captain,  and 
S£rigny,  a  minor  officer,  —  to  all  of  whom  I  declared  I 
would  so  inform  your  Majesty,  which  made  them  break  out 
against  me,  with  the  help  of  the  commissary,  Duclos." 

Cadillac  assuming  missionary  duties  after  his  expressed 
opinions  of  clerical  interferences  in  the  past,  has  a  truly 
humorous  touch  ;  but  he  was  not  one  to  be  restrained 
by  even  humour  in  the  exercise  of  his  duties  or  pen. 
He  charges  point  blank  into  the  natural  enemy  of  all 
commandants,  the  commissary.  Duclos  and  he  agreed 
about  no  one  thing  in  the  colony :  the  fortifications,  fur- 
loughs, presents  to  the  Indians,  all  were  in  dispute  be- 
tween them.  It  would  be  difficult,  he  predicted,  for 
their  union  to  subsist  much  longer.  Duclos  had  refused 
to  go  over  the  accounts  to  examine  the  justice  of  the 
13 


194  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE  MOYNE, 

complaints  against  Bienville,  and  the  truth  about  that 
officer  was  not  obtainable.  Not  so  Cadillac's  theory 
about  it :  — 

"  I  have  learned  that  Ue  Muy,  dying  in  Havana,  M.  Du- 
casse,  who  was  there,  took  all  the  official  papers  relating  to 
the  government  of  Louisiana,  and  addressed  them  to  M.  de 
Bienville,  who  found  out  in  the  instructions  the  suit  that 
was  to  be  instigated  against  him.  He  profited  by  the 
knowledge,  like  a  clever  man ;  scattering  and  sending  out 
of  his  government  all  who  would  testify  against  him,  either 
sailors  or  Canadians  in  the  pay  of  the  king,  the  rest  [of  his 
accusers]  being  dead.  As  it  is  an  affair  that  has  been 
going  on  for  twelve  years  nearly,  it  is  difficult  to  find  living 
witnesses  who  can  testify  correctly,  being,  besides,  con- 
vinced by  the  conduct  of  the  Sieur  d'Artaguette,  who  did 
nothing  in  the  matter,  and  by  that  of  Duclos,  that  the  affair 
had  been  completely  dropped.  This  cannot  be  doubted 
[the  dropping  of  the  investigation],  in  view  of  the  intimacy 
existing  between  these  two  gentlemen  [Bienville  and 
Durlos].  In  truth,  one  should  be  of  very  ill  humour  to 
ill  treat  so  good  a  host,  who  leaves  no  stone  unturned  to 
make  good  cheer,  not  only  for  his  guest,  but  for  all  who 
come  to  see  his  guest." 

And  already  Cadillac  begins  to  suspect  Duclos  of 
being  connected  in  trade  with  Bienville,  although,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  showing,  such  a  connection  must 
have  been  most  innocently  unprofitable. 

Bienville  he  indorses,  however,  as  skilful  in  managing 
the  Indians,  and  he  recommends  that  he  be  sent  to  his 
post,  Natchez,  at  once. 

The  report  of  Duclos  to  the  minister,  which  antedated 
his  principal's  by  a  few  days,  was,  as  might  be  expected, 
a  brief  on  the  other  side.  He  found,  on  arrival,  not 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  195 

only  the  climate  of  Mobile  delightful,  but  a  mine  of  salt- 
petre within  forty  leagues  of  the  fort.  He  also  described 
the  poverty  of  the  colonists ;  but  gave  as  a  reason  their 
having  to  change  their  location  so  often.  Divine  service 
was  held  in  a  chamber  of  a  house  which  the  missionaries 
had  purchased ;  a  church  was  being  built,  thanks  to  the 
generosity  of  the  Sieur  de  Remonville.  The  missionaries 
at  the  fort  were  pious ;  but  it  was  a  pity  they  did  not 
learn  the  language  of  the  Indians.  The  soldiers  were 
persuaded  that  they  had  a  right  to  their  provisions  and 
pay  ;  a  great  many  of  them  demanding  their  discharge. 
The  writer  charged  dissipation  and  extravagance  against 
those  who  formerly  had  care  of  the  magazines  of  mer- 
chandise and  ammunition.  Many  of  the  receipts  for 
provisions  furnished  had  no  shape,  and  the  inhabitants 
did  not  know  how  to  go  about  to  get  them  paid. 

"  The  accounts  found  among  the  papers  of  M.  de  la 
Salle  are  in  so  little  order  that  M.  de  Bienville,  who,  acting 
commissary,  without  knowing  how,  and  who  was  not  at  all 
fitted  for  such  business,  did  not  know  where  to  begin  to 
make  his  accounts  to  the  treasurer  of  the  Marine  for  the 
expenditures  since  1706." 

Speaking  of  the  debts  of  Bienville  and  Chateauguay, 
he  says  that  the  poverty  of  both  was  so  great  "  that  they 
were  obliged  to  take  what  they  needed  from  the  royal 
stores.  As  they  did  not  carry  on  any  trade,  and  were 
not  paid  their  salaries,  they  had  no  other  resource  in 
order  to  live.  What  is  very  certain  is,  they  are  both  very 
poor." 

In  addition  to  his  report,  Duclos  wrote  a  lengthy  me- 
morial, divided  into  chapters,  which  does  suggest  the 
intimate  companionship  complained  of  by  Cadillac.— No 


196  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

one  so  well  as  Bienville  could  have  supplied  him  with 
the  facts  of  the  condition  of  the  colony  as  set  forth, 
with  the  arguments  against  the  cession  to  Crozat,  and 
with  the  proofs  of  its  prejudice  to  the  development  of 
the  place,  and  the  eventual  advantage  to  the  king  if 
Crozat  could  be  brought  to  renounce  his  charter.  How 
much  of  Bienville's  good  cheer  furnished  inspiration  for 
the  following,  Cadillac  no  doubt  also  could  specify  : 

I"  I  cannot  too  highly  praise  the  manner  with  which  M. 
de  Bienville  has  been  able  to  gain  the  savages  and  domi- 
nate them.  He  has  succeeded  in  this  by  his  generosity, 
his  loyalty,  his  scrupulous  exactitude  in  keeping  his  word 
and  every  promise  made,  and  by  the  firm  and  equitable 
manner  with  which  he  renders  justice  among  the  different 
Indian  tribes.  .'.  .  He  has  particularly  conciliated  their 
esteem  by  punishing  severely  any  thefts  or  depredations 
committed  by  the  French,  who  are  forced  to  make  amends 
every  time  they  commit  an  injury  against  an  Indian." 

As  for  the  presents  to  the  savages,  Duclos  without 
reservation  informs  the  minister  that  Cadillac  turns 
them  to  his  own  profit,  and  he  advises  the  minister  to 
make  the  governor,  in  the  distribution  of  presents,  con- 
sult with  Bienville,  who  "  knows  better  than  any  one  in 
the  colony  the  strength  of  the  Indian  tribes,  and  conse- 
quently the  amount  and  value  of  the  presents  necessary 
to  make  them."  Recurring  to  the  charges  against 
Iberville  and  his  brothers,  Duclos  affirms  that  the  richest 
of  all,  not  excepting  one,  could  not  realize  a  revenue  of 
six  hundred  livres  a  year,  after  having  sold  all  he  pos- 
sessed and  paid  his  debts. 

In  conclusion,  the  young  commissary,  in  a  manner 
that  refutes  the  later  opinion  of  the  minister  concerning 


S/£(7A'  DE   BIENVILLE.  197 

his  capacity,  pleads  for  liberty  of  commerce  for  the 
colony,  and  demonstrates  that  without  it  the  Sieur  de 
Crozat  would  gain  nothing  out  of  his  charter.  "  As 
nothing  flatters  a  man  so  much  as  liberty,  and  as  they 
even  prefer  a  liberty  that  is  onerous,  to  restraints  that  are 
advantageous,  the  mere  appearance  of  being  able  to 
trade  freely  would  hold  the  colonists  that  are  here,  and 
attract  others." 


198  JEAN  BATTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 


IN  a  private  letter1  to  his  brother,  the  Baron  of  Lon- 
gueuil,  —  the  only  private  letter  we  have  from  him,  — 
Bienville  gives  a  view  of  the  colony  and  of  himself  which 
makes  one  all  the  more  dissatisfied  with  the  conven- 
tional and  uniform  representations  of  both  in  the  official 
documents  :  — 

LOUISIANA,  2  Oct.,  1713. 

You  will  no  doubt  have  learned,  sir  and  very  dear 
brother,  that  since  last  year  the  king  has  given  this  country 
to  a  Company  for  fifteen  years,  and  that  Monsieur  de  la 
Motte  Cadillac,  governor  of  it,  and  interested  in  it  [the 
company],  had  come  here,  with  all  his  family,  in  a  frigate  of 
forty  tons.  They  arrived  the  5th  of  June  last;  and  he  has 
put  such  consternation  in  this  country  that,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest,  all  are  asking  with  insistence  to  go  out  of  it. 
Several  of  the  inhabitants  have  already  gone  to  Vera  Cruz 
and  Havana  ;  each  one  is  seeking  some  way  of  escape.  It  is 
indeed  a  sad  thing,  particularly  for  us  officers  and  soldiers, 
to  whom  nothing  came  from  France.  My  brother  Se"rigny 
was  not  able  to  ship  even  a  small  box  by  paying  the  freight. 
We  are  obliged  to  sell  our  slaves  and  small  furniture,  to 
make  a  little  money  to  buy  flour,  shirts,  and  other  cloth- 

1  Histoire  de  Longueuil  Jodoin,  and  Vincent,  p.  119.  Letter 
published  first  in  "  Revue  Canadienne,"  October,  1881,  p.  596- 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  199 

ing  from'  the  store  of  the  Company.  They  do  not  wish 
to  receive  our  salaries  [certificates],  at  half  or  even  two 
thirds  discount;  they  wish  only  money,  and  this  autumn 
we  must  clothe  ourselves.  ...  A  quarter  of  flour  is  sold 
to  us  at  ninety  livres,  a  hat  forty  livres,  an  ell  of  Rouen 
linen  seven  livres;  and  so  on.  When  we  try  to  say  that 
that  is  too  high,  we  are  answered  that  they  do  not  force  us 
to  buy,  that  that  is  the  current  price  among  the  Spaniards, 
and  that  if  we  can  do  without,  not  to  take  it.  But  how 
get  elsewhere?  There  is  only  this  one  store.  There 
came  also  a  commissairc  ordonnateur,  with  strict  orders 
from  the  minister  to  make  us  pay  for  all  the  provisions 
and  other  goods  we  had  been  obliged  to  take  from  the 
king's  store,  when  resources  from  France  failed,  at  the 
highest  prices  such  goods  could  ever  have  in  this  country, 
so  that  those  of  us  who  calculated  that  we  only  owed  the 
king  two  or  three  thousand  livres,  we  have  to  find  from 
eight  to  ten  thousand.  It  is  forbidden  also  in  the  future 
to  deliver  anything  to  the  officers  from  the  royal  stores, 
not  even  a  pound  of  powder.  In  spite  of  ourselves,  we  must 
buy  from  the  Company.  Our  soldiers  are  as  poor  as  we ; 
they  have  not  been  paid  in  seven  years,  and  by  this  vessel  ' 
[the  one  that  brought  La  Motte-CadilTac]  there  only  came 
for  them  one  coat  and  two  shirts  [apiece],  no  stockings,  — 
nothing  else.  For  all  provisions,  there  is  only  given  to 
them  one  pound  of  bad  flour;  no  meat,  no  vegetables. 
They  are  crying,  '  Enough  !  '  They  often  desert,  and  the 
prison  is  full  of  those  who  are  caught.  I  will  tell  you 
nothing  of  M.  de  la  Motte,  except  that  we  all  find  it  very  ^ 
disagreeable  to  serve  under  him.  He  is  completely  dazzled  / 
at  seeing  himself  the  governor  of  the  charming  province  of 
Louisiana.  If  he  were  not  at  the  head  of  this  Company,  he 
would  perhaps  assist  the  officers  a  little.  Upon  his  arrival, 
all  the  voyageurs  were  here,  with  large  supplies  of  peltry, 
which  he  obliged  them  to  sell  at  vile  prices  ;  selling  them 


2OO  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

in  return  merchandise  exorbitantly  high,  so  that  they  have 
all  decamped  to  the  Illinois,  protesting  that  they  will  never 
again  descend  here,  but  in  future  go  to  Montreal. 

It  is  only  five  months  since  the  arrival  of  the  vessel  that 
brought  De  la  Motte,  and  already  all  the  provisions  are  at 
an  end.  The  king  has  only  two  barrels  of  flour  left.  M. 
de  la  Motte  has  given  the  soldiers  leave  to  go  and  live 
wherever  they  please  among  the  savages.  There  is  no 
guard-mounting  any  longer.  I  will  not  expand  further  on 
the  sad  condition  in  which  the  colony  is  ;  it  has  never  been 
so  miserable.  There  is  a  great  deal  due  by  the  king  for 
advances  made  by  the  inhabitants  in  times  of  past  need, 
and  nothing  has  been  paid  yet.  M.  de  la  Motte  has  a 
grown  daughter  who  has  a  great  deal  of  merit.  I  would 
think  of  asking  her  in  marriage,  if  I  had  received  your 
consent  and  that  of  my  very  dear  sister,  although  I  should 
have  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  make  up  my  mind  to  become 
the  son-in-law  of  M.  de  la  Motte,  on  account  of  all  the 
snarls  I  see  him  in  with  everybody.  He  is  the  most  arti- 
ficial man  in  the  world,  who  never  says  aught  but  the  con- 
trary of  what  he  thinks. 

I  gave  myself  already,  a  year  ago,  the  pleasure  of  writ- 
ing to  you  on  the  subject  of  this  future  marriage,  to  know 
your  thought.  I  had  not  at  that  time  seen  the  young  lady. 
I  have  not  touched  with  her  upon  the  subject  of  the  mar- 
riage, and  will  not  do  so  until  I  hear  your  will  on  the  sub- 
ject. I  have  never  had  a  father;  it  is  you  who  served  me 
for  one.  I  think  that  you  will  kindly  continue  your  good 
offices  to  me  in  regard  to  the  twelve  thousand  livres  which 
you  kindly  withdrew  from  the  sale  of  "  Pres-de-ville  "  and 
the  city  house,  and  we  beg  you,  Chateauguay  and  I,  to 
have  it  held  for  us  in  France.  Chateauguay  informs  you 
what  he  owes  to  Madame  de  Bethune  (the  widow  of  Iber- 
ville.  remarried  to  the  Comte  de  Bethune),  and  begs  you  to 
send  it  to  her.  As  for  me,  I  owe  nothing  to  anybody. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  2OI 

M.  de  Se"rigny,  who  told  you  that  I  was  in  debt  to  him, 
is  mistaken ;  he  has  never  loaned  me  a  sol  since  I  can 
remember  myself  as  reasonable :  it  is  he  who  owes  me  a 
thousand  pieces,  which  I  sent  him  six  years  ago.  On  the 
seven  thousand  livres,  or  thereabouts,  that  you  may  have 
for  me,  I  beg  you  to  remit  seven  hundred  livres  in  French 
money  to  the  heirs  of  a  certain  Duchery  who  died  here  five 
years  ago;  his  father  was  named  Denis  Darbois ;  the  bap- 
tismal name  of  this  one  also  is  Denis.  I  have  here  three 
money  orders  belonging  to  him :  one  for  360  livres,  for  his 
pay  for  one  year;  another  for  180  livres,  for  clothes  sold 
several  Canadians  in  the  service  of  the  king,  who  could  only 
pay  in  money  orders  ;  and  also  another  for  160  livres,  for 
some  other  transactions  which  I  assumed  for  this  Duche'ry. 
His  father,  I  believe,  belongs  to  "Cap  Rouge,"  —  three 
leagues  from  Quebec.  I  wrote  to  his  parents,  who  have 
made  no  reply.  It  should  be  the  same  to  them  to  receive 
from  you  cards  [card-money],  which  is  the  money  of  Can- 
ada, as  these  money  orders,  which  I  do  not  think  will  be 
paid  until  the  king  pays  his  cards.  .  .  . 

I  have  heard  here  casually  (eu  batons  rompus)  that  the 
heirs  of  the  late  Chevalier  de  Be'cancourt  [one  of  the  first 
commissaries  in  the  colony]  had  not  been  paid  by  the  late 
M.  d'Iberville  the  eight  hundred  livres  which  the  auction  of 
his  possessions  amounted  to,  —  which  astonishes  me,  having 
written  at  the  time  to  M.  d'Iberville  that  I  had  received  this 
sum  of  eight  hundred  livres  and  [for  him]  to  give  them  to  the 
heirs.  I  sent  him  the  inventory  which  I  had  signed  by  the 
officers  in  duplicate.  He  acknowledged  to  me  the  reception 
of  it,  telling  me  that  he  had  found  at  Paris  the  eldest  of  the 
Messieurs  de  Becancourt,  to  whom  he  had  loaned  money, 
more  even  than  that  sum  covered.  I  cannot  learn  from  the 
accounts  Madame  de  Bethune  sends  me  if  she  is  carrying 
the  eight  hundred  livres  for  me,  as  nothing  is  sent  me  in 
detail,  only  the  totals.  The  clerks  she  has,  not  being  the 


202  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

same  as  before,  during  the  lifetime  of  her  husband,  I  can- 
not exactly  find  out  if  I  owe  that  amount.  I  have  still  the 
letter,  in  which  my  late  brother  informs  me  that  he  has  ac- 
counts with  the  eldest  of  the  Messieurs  de  Be'cancourt,  and 
that  he  is  satisfied ;  but  in  the  uncertainty  I  think  I  should, 
in  conscience,  pray  you  to  see  these  gentlemen,  the  heirs  of 
the  said  Chevalier  de  Be'cancourt,  and  to  pay  them  the  sum 
of  eight  hundred  livres,  after  taking  their  oath  that  they 
have  never  received  the  above  amount,  particularly  the 
eldest  of  the  family.  If  you  have  to  pay  this  amount,  there 
will  not  remain  more  than  4,500  of  the  6,000  livres;  you 
will  have  them  sent  for  me  in  France  in  the  manner  you 
think  most  proper,  either  in  employing  cards,  peltry,  or 
sending  them  in  bills  of  exchange,  the  whole  addressed  to 
my  brother  De  Serigny.  You  will  know  better  than  I  the 
manner  which  will  be  most  advantageous  for  me,  on  ac 
count  of  the  risks,  which  are  at  present  small,  having  peace 
with  England.  I  approve  and  will  hold  well  done  what- 
ever you  do  in  the  matter. 

While  I  am  writing,  Madame  Le  Sueur  has  come  in ; 
she  assures  me  of  having  heard  it  said  by  one  Babin, 
called  Lasource,  who  came  here  by  land  five  years  ago, 
that  the  heirs  of  the  Sieur  de  Be'cancourt  had  obliged  him, 
Babin,  who  was  in  debt  to  the  late  M.  d'Iberville,  to  pay 
them,  —  which  debt  he  was  condemned  to  pay,  and  did  pay. 
As  this  Babin,  or  Lasource,  is  not  here  at  present,  —  he  lives 
ten  leagues  from  here.  —  I  cannot  know  exactly  how  much 
he  paid  on  the  account  of  M.  d'Iberville.  Madame  Le 
Sueur  says  she  thinks  it  was  to  Madame  de  Sourdis  (De 
Villebon)  that  the  said  Lasource  gave  400  to  700  livres. 
You  will  have  the  kindness  to  inform  yourself  about  it.  and 
to  pay  nothing  until  I  have  heard  from  this  Babin  that  he 
has  paid,  on  the  account  of  M.  d'Iberville,  the  amount  of 
the  Be'cancourt  heritage.  As  the  rest  of  the  voyagers  who 
intend  going  into  your  part  of  the  country  leave  shortly,  I 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  2O3 

will  enlighten  you  better  about  it.  In  regard  to  what  you 
tell  me,  —  Saint-He*lene  is  to  take  on  the  twelve  thousand 
livres,  —  I  shall  keep  account ;  he  owes  me  considerable. 
He  has  a  very  poor  head,  and  spends  a  great  deal :  one  can 
trust  him  with  nothing,  he  dissipates  a  great  deal.  I  have 
kept  him  here  by  me,  and  have  given  him  the  command  of 
the  little  brigantines  which  the  king  keeps  in  the  country; 
he  has  600  livres  a  year  and  his  valet.  The  commissary  is 
one  of  my  intimates  ;  we  live  together.  I  got  him  to  write 
to  the  minister  very  advantageously  about  Saint-Helene  ; 
he  continues  the  same  pay  that  I  had  given  him.  The  last 
voyage  that  I  sent  Saint-Helene  on  to  Vera  Cruz,  he  spent 
more  than  5,000  livres  in  nine  months'  time.  When  I  asked 
him  to  account  for  it,  the  only  reason  he  could  give  me  was 
that  he  had  bought  six  very  fine  horses  very  dear,  which 
had  died,  and  the  rest  was  not  his  fault ;  that  his  pilot  had 
solicited  him  to  feast  the  other  pilots  and  ship-captains  in 
port;  and,  in  short,  several  similar  reasons.  I  confess  to 
you,  a  very  little  more,  and  I  would  have  sent  him  back  to 
my  brother  Serigny,  who  sent  him  to  me.  He  will  ruin 
me  if  he  continues.  He  drinks  and  smokes  a  great  deal ; 
he  is  assuredly  the  only  one  of  the  family  who  does  so. 
He  does  not  stick  to  anything;  he  has  just,  however, prom- 
ised me  that  he  will  be  more  orderly  in  the  future.  He  is 
leaving  for  Havana  to  get  Indian  corn  for  the  garrison, 
which  is  reduced  to  running  the  woods  for  a  living. 

I  have  strong  expectations  that  this  company  will  not 
be  able  to  hold  out  in  this  country,  and  that  it  will  abandon 
it,  whatever  good  hopes  M.  de  la  Motte  gives  M.  Crozat 
and  Le  Bar,  who  have  an  interest  in  it  [the  Company]. 
Their  one  object  is  to  open  a  great  commerce  with  Spain; 
but  they  will  certainly  not  accomplish  anything.  The 
Spaniards  are  warned,  and  they  thrust  their  hands  in  every- 
where, searching  even  into  the  sheathing  of  the  ships  which 
go  there  for  provisions.  A  vessel  is  just  at  this  moment 


204  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

arriving  from  Vera  Cruz,  which  they  [the  Company]  sent 
under  pretext  of  asking  help.  It  was  sent  back,  in  sight  of 
land,  without  a  hearing. 

I  am  very  sensible  of  the  expressions  of  friendship  that 
you  give  me  in  your  letters,  and  also  of  [those  of]  my  very 
dear  sister,  who  had  the  goodness  to  think  of  me.  I  have 
received  two  of  her  letters,  which  gave  me  real  pleasure. 
I  pray  her  to  continue  to  write  to  me,  it  is  the  only  conso- 
lation I  have  in  this  country,  to  hear  from  you  and  her.  I 
tremble  every  time  I  hear  that  there  is  some  great  sickness 
in  Canada.  As  you  are  both  beginning  to  enter  into  years, 
the  risk  is  greater. 

You  will  kindly  permit  me  to  embrace  here  M.  de  Lon- 
gueuil  [eldest  son  of  the  baron],  who,  I  am  assured,  has 
returned  to  Canada  a  lieutenant ;  you  must  be  thinking  of 
soon  making  a  captain  of  him.  Suffer  me  to  embrace  here 
Madame  de  Varennes,  my  very  dear  niece;  I  am  much 
pleased  that  you  inform  me  she  is  happy  with  M.  de  Va- 
rennes :  I  had  heard  quite  differently,  which  troubled  me 
much.  She  is  an  amiable  girl,  with  all  the  merit  in  the 
world,  according  to  the  portrait  I  have  heard  made  of  her. 
My  dear  cousin  De  Senneville,  be  sure  to  give  him  my 
compliments ;  I  despair  of  ever  hearing  from  him,  after 
having  written  to  him  (without  an  answer)  as  often  as  I  did 
when  I  first  came  here.  I  know  he  is  very  negligent  about 
writing,  which  takes  from  me  all  thought  that  he  is  acting 
from  indifference. 

I  am  writing  to  M.  de  la  Chassagne,  begging  him  to  re- 
proach my  sister  with  her  neglect ;  she  has  never  yet  written 
to  me  a  single  line  in  her  life,  —  at  which  I  am  very  much 
mortified,  loving  her  as  tenderly  as  I  do,  and  I  threaten  her 
in  the  letter  I  am  writing,  to  force  her  henceforth  to  write 
to  me,  by  the  importunities  I  threaten  to  write  to  her. 

Chateauguay  is  writing  to  you  very  lengthily.  He  will, 
no  doubt,  touch  upon  the  worry  M.  de  la  Motte  is  causing 


SJEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  205 

him.  He  has  taken  possession  of  his  house,  despite  him 
and  whatever  resistance  he  could  make,  as  it  was  a  large, 
new  two-storied  house,  and  good  to  lodge  Ids  [Cadillac's] 
whole  family,  which  is  numerous. 

As  I  expect  to  go  to  France  next  year,  I  pray  you,  my 
very  dear  sister,  to  recommend  to  your  patron  to  aid  me  in 
obtaining  what  1  might  find  to  suit  me.  It  is  a  favour  I 
ask  of  you,  and  also  that  of  believing  me,  with  much  respect, 
sir  and- very  dear  brother, 

Your  very  humble  and  very  obedient  servant, 

BIENVILLE. 

I  forgot  to  tel!  you  that  I  think  the  minister  completely 
recovered  from  his  attitude  against  me.  The  curate-priest, 
my  enemy,  has  been  recalled  ;  another  has  come  in  his 
place,  who  often  eats  of  my  soup.  The  minister  gives  me 
plenty  of  the  holy  water  of  the  court.  In  the  last  letters 
he  writes  me  promising  that  on  the  first  opportunity  I  might 
be  advanced.  I  almost  flatter  myself  that  if  this  company 
should  fail,  M.  de  la  Motte  might  be  recalled,  and  I  remain 
again  commandant.  It  is  only  in  case  that  this  should 
happen  that  I  ask  your  consent  to  marry  Mile,  de  la  Motte  ; 
for  without  that  I  do  not  see  ahead  how  I  could  provide 
for  a  wife  or  provide  for  myself,  for  our  governor  is  very 
stingy.  He  has  not  yet  offered  us  a  glass  of  water  since 
the  five  months  he  has  been  here.  The  officers  are  always 
at  my  house.  As  heretofore,  in  regard  to  the  money  I  had 
in  my  hands  belonging  to  the  heirs  of  Poitier,  here  inclosed, 
I  have  remitted  it  all  into  the  hands  of  the  Sieur  Charly,  upon 
the  procuration  of  his  father,  De  Poitier.  I  am  very  much 
mortified  because  M.  Pacaud  writes  me  that  Poitier  owes 
him;  but  it  was  too  late,  it  was  already  delivered. 

While  Bienville  was  thus  seemingly  occupied  renew- 
ing his  family  relations,  arranging  his  financial  affairs,  in- 


206  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

dulging  in  matrimonial  speculations,  preparing  either  for 
retreat  to  France  or  replacement  to  his  old  command 
in  case  of  Cadillac's  happy  failure,  the  latter  was  wrest- 
ling with  the  swarming  difficulties  of  his  government. 
As  he  truthfully  said,  a  similar  one  existed  nowheie  in 
the  world.  His  pen  alone  can  do  justice  to  it.  In  order 
to  reap  a  new  harvest  of  presents,  feastings,  and  pacifica- 
tions out  of  the  new  administration,  the  natives  were 
breaking  out  into  complications  in  every  quarter.  No 
market  could  be  found  for  Crozat's  merchandise,  either 
openly  or  surreptitiously,  by  land  or  by  water,  in  any  of 
the  Spanish  possessions.  The  king,  as  usual,  defaulting 
from  his  share  of  the  charter,  was  sending  neither  pay, 
clothes,  nor  provisions  for  the  soldiers,  who  were  mu- 
tinous and  deserting.  The  girls  sent  out  to  marry  were 
worthless  characters.  Even  the  Creator  was  particeps 
criminis  in  the  disorder  and  distress,  for  having  created 
such  a  country,  the  vilest  of  the  vile  for  infertility,  in- 
salubrity, and  influences  for  general  moral  depravation. 
It  was  not  worth  wasting  money  on,  and  could  be  of 
no  utility  to  France,  except  for  commercial  depredations 
upon  the  Spaniards  in  time  of  peace,  and  armed  ones  in 
time  of  war.  But  of  all  the  difficulties  of  his  position, 
Bienville  and  Duclos  were  the  most  exasperating,  and, 
indeed,  in  the  governor's  point  of  view,  most  responsible 
for  all  the  rest.  They  had  formed  a  cabal  among  the 
officers,  which,  waxing  in  violence  and  impertinence,  met 
in  the  house  of  the  commissary  for  the  purpose  of  drink- 
ing, debauchery,  and  formation  of  schemes  against  the 
governor.  Without  regard  apparently  for  any  prospects 
of  tender  family  relations,  he  had  had  Bienville  arrested 
for  giving  him  the  lie  twice  consecutively.  He  took  the 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  2O? 

disciplining  of  the  soldiers  in  hand  himself,  and  put  one 
in  irons,  —  a  mutineer  who  came  to  demand  food  from 
him.  He  particularly  prided  himself  upon  his  treatment 
of  the  colonists,  who  had  assembled  themselves  without 
his  permission  and  drawn  up  a  petition  asking  that  M. 
Crozat  would  sell  only  by  wholesale,  and  only  at  fifty  per 
cent  profit  on  the  price  in  France.  Cadillac  says  that  the 
petition  contained  s'everal  other  demands  equally  absurd, 
but  that  news  of  it  coming  to  him,  he  proclaimed  loudly 
that  he  would  hang  any  bearer  of  it  as  the  leader  of 
rebellion ;  and  this  threat  coming  to  the  ears  of  Bien- 
ville  and  Duclos,  they  suppressed  it. 

Crozat  came  to  the  protection  of  his  interest  by  rain- 
ing down  upon  the  colony  ordinances  against  trade  in 
any  shape  or  form,  even  to  the  small  marketing  pro- 
visionment  of  Pensacola,  under  penalty  of  confiscation 
to  the  benefit  of  Crozat.  It  was  also  forbidden  for  any 
one  in  the  colony  to  possess  a  vessel  proper  for  sea 
travel,  or  for  any  one,  not  of  the  colony,  to  send  any 
vessel  into  it  for  the  purpose  of  trade.  As  much  as  pos- 
sible all  expenses  were  paid  in  the  merchandise  which 
accumulated  to  rot  in  the  warehouses,  and  prices  were 
strained  to  cover,  not  only  all  legitimate  profit,  extor- 
tionate as  it  was,  but  also  the  loss  from  disappointment 
of  the  Spanish  trade. 

Cadillac  was  not  less  ingenious  in  coming  to  the 
rescue  of  his  authority,  put  in  derision  by  the  cabal  of 
godless  young  officers.  He  emitted  an  ordinance  which 
forbade  the  wearing  of  swords  or  other  arms  by  any  one 
not  proving  his  title  of  nobility  to  the  clerk  of  the  coun- 
cil, under  pain  of  three  hundred  livres  fine  and  one 
month's  imprisonment,  with  increased  punishment  in 


208  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

case  of  a  repetition  of  the  offence.  And  in  every  letter 
the  minister  was  importuned  to  interfere,  or  to  authorize 
the  governor  to  proceed  with  such  drastic  remedies  as 
his  skill  and  experience  suggested,  not  only  in  civil  and 
military  matters,  but  in  ecclesiastical. 

A  surcease  of  the  moral  and  political  strain  was  ob- 
tained, not,  the  "  Journal  Historique  "  says,  without  the 
connivance  of  Bienville.  Towards  the  close  of  the  year 
1714,  Dutisne,  a  Canadian,  arrived  in  Mobile  to  en- 
gage in  the  service  of  Crozat.  He  brought  with  him 
some  specimens  of  ore,  which  had  been  given  him  in 
the  country  of  the  Illinois  by  some  Canadians,  who  as- 
sured him  that  they  had  found  them  near  Kaskaskias. 
These  specimens  were  exhibited  to  Cadillac,  who  had 
them  tested.  They  were  found  to  contain  a  large  pro- 
portion of  silver.  His  imagination  inflamed  by  pros- 
pects of  colonial  and  personal  wealth.  Cadillac,  without 
a  moment's  hesitation,  and  with  all  haste  and  secrecy, 
made  his  preparations  and  took  his  departure  for  the 
regions  of  the  supposed  mines,  leaving  his  command, 
untrammelled  to  Bienville,  and  to  the  presumably  well 
satisfied  cabal  of  Canadian  officers. 


S1EUX  DE  BIENVILLE. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 
1715,  1716. 

THE  Indians  soon  recognized  the  grip  of  a  familiar 
hand  upon  them,  rousing  them  from  their  comfortable 
and  profitable  double-dealing.  English  traders  had 
crept  in  among  the  Chickasaws,  Choctavvs,  Yazous,  and 
Natchez,  and  English  emissaries  were  busy  among  the 
tribes  still  nearer  the  French.  An  English  officer  from 
Carolina,  travelling  in  friendly  security  down  the  Mis- 
sissippi, was  arrested  at  Manchac  by  a  pirogue  of  Cana- 
dians sent  for  the  purpose,  and  brought  to  Mobile. 
Although  Bienville  set  him  at  liberty  and  passed  him  on 
to  Pensacola,  it  is  related,  rather  grimly,  that  he  was 
killed  by  a  Tohomes  Indian  on  his  way  back  to  Carolina. 
Already  Indian  chiefs  were  accepting  English  invi- 
tations to  visit  their  settlement  in  Carolina.  Bienville 
sent  for  the  principal  of  the  Choctaw  chiefs,  who  only 
came,  says  the  "Journal  Historique/'  upon  the  assur- 
ance of  Cadillac's  absence.  They  were  treated  to  such 
denunciations  of  their  broken  faith,  such  reproaches  for 
their  disloyalty,  and  of  what  they  were  to  expect  in  the 
way  of  profit  and  friendship  from  the  French,  that  they 
promised  all  that  was  required  of  them,  and  went  away 
primed  to  acquit  it.  And  in  a  short  time  they,  in  fact, 
returned  with  three  English  male  prisoners,  whom  they 
had  pillaged.  Other  tribes,  envious  of  their  booty  or 


2IO  JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE  MOYNE, 

their  loyalty,  followed  their  example.  In  less  than  a 
month,  a  general  pillaging  of  English  merchandise  had 
scattered  the  English  traders.  Those  who  were  brought 
prisoners  to  Mobile  were  sent  on  a  voyage  to  Vera 
Cruz.  De  Sainte-Helene  lost  his  not  very  valuable 
life  in  a  Chickasaw  village  where  a  massacre  of  the 
traders  preceded  their  pillaging.  Following  the  advice 
of  a  chief  to  keep  out  of  the  way,  he  remained  in  his 
cabin ;  but  while  he  was  bending  over  to  get  a  light 
for  his  pipe,  two  young  savages,  mistaking  him  for  an 
Englishman,  slipped  up  behind  him  and  killed  him. 
Renewed  alliances  with  the  French  naturally  followed 
this  outbreak  against  their  rivals,  —  alliances  which 
Bienville  forced  to  include,  not  only  intertribal  peace, 
but  punishment  of  the  disloyal ;  the  Choctavv  chiefs 
pushing  their  regenerated  allegiance  so  far  as  to  bring 
to  him,  according  to  his  demand,  the  heads  of  those 
of  the  tribe  who  had  been  led  by  partisanship  of  the 
English  into  visiting  Carolina,  who,  Bienville  con- 
vinced them,  were  the  causes  of  all  their  delinquencies. 

In  the  month  of  October,  Cadillac  returned  from  the 
Illinois.  His  letters  to  the  minister  during  his  mining 
experiment  keep  up  a  brave  show  of  hope  and  convic- 
tion ;  but  his  voyage,  as  he  had  found  out,  was  a  wild- 
goose  chase.  The  specimens  of  ore  had  not  been 
found  near  Kaskaskia,  but  had  been  given  to  the 
Canadians  there  by  some  courenrs  de  bois,  who  had 
obtained  them  from  some  Spaniards.  The  governor 
returned  therefore  to  his  capital  more  determined  and 
better  fitted  than  ever  by  temper  to  carry  out  his  ideal 
of  authority.  The  greatest  obstacle  to  it  in  his  opinion 
was  shortly  to  be  removed. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  211 

Bienville  received  orders  from  France  to  proceed  with 
a  force  of  eighty  men  to  his  post  at  the  Natchez,  make 
an  establishment,  and  take  up  his  residence  there. 
Pirogues  were  being  constructed,  and  other  preparations 
made  for  the  expedition,  when  news  was  received  in 
January,  1716,  which  changed  the  character  of  the  en- 
terprise, and  indeed,  eventually,  the  character  of  the 
French  occupation  of  the  Mississippi.  The  Natchez 
were  in  war,  they  had  pillaged  Crozat's  storehouse, 
killed  all  the  commissioners  they  could  find,  and  were 
putting  to  death  all  the  Frenchmen  caught  travelling  up 
and  down  the  river.  Nothing  could  be  more  disastrous 
to  the  colony ;  there  was  no  nation  so  important  to  the 
success  of  it  as  the  Natchez,  none  whom  it  was  so  neces- 
sary to  keep  on  good  terms  with,  and  none,  now  that 
they  were  in  revolt,  whom  it  was  so  vital  to  subjugate 
promptly  and  in  an  impressive  and  satisfactory  manner. 
Bienville  hastened  his  departure  in  every  possible  man- 
ner. Unfortunately  there  is  no  account  from  him  of 
the  first  Natchez  war,  as  it  is  called,  nor  from  Cadil- 
lac. The  Relations  from  the  two  participants  in  it, 
Richebourg  and  Pennicaut,  leave  nothing  to  be  desired 
in  detail  and  manner ;  but  the  former,  as  Cadillac's 
clique  explain,  belonged  to  Bienville's  cabal,  and  the 
latter  was  ever  his  fervent  admirer.  Both  substantially 
agree.  But  however  related  and  by  whom,  the  affair 
is  interesting  in  the  light  it  throws  upon  Bienville's 
character,  upon  the  character  of  the  Natchez,  and  the 
description  of  the  unique  duel  which  took  place  be- 
tween the  representatives  of  a  barbarized  civilization 
and  a  civilized  barbarity. 

Duclos,  who  forwards  Richebourg's   memoir  to  the 


212  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

minister,  repeats  the  former's  account  of  Cadillac's  im- 
politic conduct  in  refusing  or  slighting  the  calumet  of 
the  Natchez  both  in  going  up  the  river  to  the  Illinois, 
and  returning.  The  Natchez,  suspiciously  concluding 
from  this  that  some  stroke  was  intended  against  them, 
simply  took  the  initiative,  as  they  imagined.  Riche- 
bourg  expressed  this,  in  his  opinion,  as  the  cause  of 
the  war,  frankly  to  Cadillac,  who  agreed,  says  Duclos, 
in  its  probable  correctness.  Cadillac's  reasons  to 
the  minister  for  the  war  were  quite  otherwise.  He 
wrote  that  after  the  accidental  burning  of  the  Natchez 
temple,  by  flames  carried  from  the  cabin  of  Crozat's 
agent,  four  Frenchmen  travelling  up  to  the  Illinois  were 
killed,  according  to  Indian  custom,  which  demands  a 
human  sacrifice  for  the  burning  of  a  temple,  when  the 
chief  does  not  throw  himself  into  the  flames.  Bienville's 
comment  upon  this  is  that  the  Frenchmen  were  killed 
four  weeks  after  the  extinction  of  the  fire,  and  that  dur- 
ing the  burning  of  the  temple  there  were  Frenchmen 
among  the  Natchez  to  whom  no  harm  was  done. 
Richebourg  writes  that  after  the  news  arrived  in  Mo- 
bile, when  Bienville  was  making  all  haste  to  depart,  he 
solicited  Cadillac  to  detail  the  force  of  eighty  men, 
ordered  by  Pontchartrain.  Cadillac  refused  to  do 
more  than  give  him  the  company  of  Richebourg,  which 
consisted  only  of  thirty-four  men.  Bienville  then  got 
Duclos  and  the  agents  of  Crozat  to  join  him  in  repre- 
senting to  Cadillac  the  impossibility  of  constructing 
a  fort  and  carrying  on  a  war  with  the  Natchez,  who 
numbered  at  least  eight  hundred  men,  with  a  force  of 
thirty-four.  The  result  was  an  addition  of  fifteen 
sailors.  With  these  he  started,  in  eight  pirogues.  He 


SIEUR   DK   BIENVILLE.  213 

arrived  at  the  Tunicas,  eighteen  leagues  below  the 
Natchez,  on  the  230!  of  April.  There  he  learned 
that  the  Natchez  had  assassinated  another  French- 
man coming  down  the  river  from  the  Illinois,  and 
were  lying  in  wait  at  the  same  place  for  fifteen  more 
who  were  expected.  Davion,  the  missionary  at  the 
Tunicas,  advised  Bienville  of  the  fact  that  the  Natchez 
were  still  ignorant  that  the  French  knew  of  their 
misdeeds,  the  assassinations  being  kept  a  profound 
secret  among  them.  He  warned  him  also  against  the 
Tunicas,  who  had  received  presents  to  kill  him.  Con- 
cealing his  anxiety  at  this  last  information,  and  his 
knowledge  of  the  state  of  affairs  among  the  Natchez, 
Bienville  assembled  the  Tunica  warriors,  and  gave  out 
to  them  that  his  mission  was  to  make  a  small  estab- 
lishment among  the  Natchez,  where  that  nation  and 
others  could  trade  their  peltry  for  merchandise ;  but  as 
his  men  were  very  fatigued  with  the  voyage,  and  there 
was  some  sickness  among  them,  he  was  going  to  camp 
on  an  island  a  third  of  a  league  below  their  village,  to 
rest  for  some  time,  and  that  they  would  do  him  a  favour 
by  sending  some  of  their  tribe  to  announce  his  arrival 
to  the  Natchez,  which  was  done  at  once  ;  and  Bienville, 
after  smoking  the  calumet  of  the  Tunicas,  and  making 
them  smoke  his,  proceeded  to  the  island,  where  he 
immediately  went  to  work  putting  up  a  little  intrench- 
ment  of  pieux  and  the  necessary  lodgments  for  his 
troops.  On  the  2yth,  three  Natchez  arrived,  sent  by 
their  chief  to  present  the  calumet  to  Bienville.  He 
waved  it  aside,  saying  that  they  could  get  some  of  his 
soldiers  to  smoke  it,  but  that  for  himself,  being  a  great 
chief  of  the  French,  he  would  only  smoke  a  calumet 


214  JEAN  BATTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

presented  by  a  sun  chief.  This  somewhat  disconcerted 
the  warriors.  However,  Bienville,  having  given  them 
something  to  eat,  affected  great  gayety  with  them, 
asked  the  news  of  their  chiefs,  expressed  great  desire 
to  see  them,  and  his  astonishment  that  they  had  not 
already  come  to  bring  him  refreshments,  that  appar- 
ently the  Natchez  did  not  care  about  the  French  mak- 
ing an  establishment  with  them,  and  that  if  it  was  so, 
he  would  make  it  at  the  Tunicas.  The  warriors  replied, 
with  evident  satisfaction,  that  their  nation  desired  noth- 
ing better  than  to  have  an  establishment  of  the  French 
on  their  territory,  and  that  they  were  convinced  that  in 
five  or  six  days  the  chiefs  of  the  nation,  without  fail, 
would  come  themselves  to  express  their  joy  at  it.  The 
next  day  the  three  warriors  returned.  Bienville  sent 
with  them  a  young  Frenchman  who  spoke  their  lan- 
guage perfectly,  to  whom  he  had  explained  everything 
to  say  to  the  chiefs,  and  all  the  answers  necessary  to 
induce  them  to  come  to  the  island.  The  same  day  he 
sent  one  of  his  bravest  and  most  adroit  Canadians  in  a 
pirogue  with  an  Illinois  to  slip  by  the  Natchez  during 
the  night  and  hasten  up  the  river  to  warn  the  fifteen 
men  coming  down  from  the  Illinois.  lie  gave  him 
also,  to  place  in  the  different  points  of  the  river,  a  dozen 
large  sheets  of  parchment,  on  which  was  written  in 
large  characters :  "  The  Natchez  have  declared  war 
against  the  French,  and  M.  de  Bienville  is  camped 
at  the  Tunicas." 

In  about  a  week  six  Canadian  trappers  arrived  at 
the  island  camp  in  three  pirogues  loaded  with  peltry, 
smoked  beef,  and  bear's  oil.  They  related  that,  un- 
aware of  the  hostilities  of  the  Natchez,  they  had  landed 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  21$ 

there  ;  but  hardly  had  their  feet  touched  land  when 
some  twenty  men  jumped  upon  them,  disarmed  them, 
and  carried  off  everything  they  had  in  their  pirogues. 
They  were  conducted  to  the  village  of  the  chief  named 
The  Bearded,  —  a  great  warrior.  He  asked  them  im- 
mediately how  many  more  Frenchmen  were  corning 
down  after  them  ;  they  answered,  ingenuously,  that  they 
had  left  twelve  more  in  six  pirogues,  who  were  still 
hunting,  but  who  would  not  be  long  behind  them.  A 
short  while  afterwards,  some  of  the  great  chiefs  of  the 
Natchez  came  in  a  great  temper  to  take  The  Bearded 
to  task  for  having  pillaged  and  disarmed  the  Canadians. 
Their  arms  were  at  once  returned  to  them,  and  the  re- 
storation of  their  property  promised.  They  were  given 
food,  and  shut  up  in  a  cabin  to  themselves,  where  they 
remained  three  days,  during  which  the  chiefs  and  war- 
riors deliberated  night  and  day  what  they  should  do 
with  them.  The  fourth  day  the  chiefs  came  for  them, 
and  conducted  them  to  their  pirogues,  in  which  they 
found  almost  everything  that  had  been  taken  from  them. 
There,  the  chiefs  told  them  that  Bienville  was  at  the 
Tunicas,  resting,  that  shortly  he  expected  to  come  to 
the  Natchez  to  make  an  establishment,  and  that  they 
intended  sending  him  provisions  in  a  few  days. 

On  the  8th  of  May,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
there  were  seen  approaching  the  island  four  pirogues,  in 
each  of  which  were  four  men  erect,  chanting  the  cal- 
umet, and  three  sitting  under  parasols,  with  twelve 
swimmers  round  about.  It  was  the  Natchez  chiefs,  com- 
ing to  fall  into  the  trap  prepared  for  them.  Bienville's 
interpreter  accompanied  them,  and  another  Frenchman. 

Bienville,  an  adept  in  savage  ceremonies  and  customs, 


2l6  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

ordered  one  half  of  his  men  not  to  show  themselves, 
but  to  remain  tinder  arms,  at  hand  in  their  barracks. 
The  other  half  were  to  remain  unarmed  around  his  tent, 
and  when  the  boats  landed,  were  to  take  their  arms,  one 
by  one,  as  the  savages  stepped  ashore  ;  and  he  charged 
them  only  to  let  the  eight  chiefs  he  named  (knowing  all 
the  warriors  by  name)  enter  his  tent ;  the  rest  were  to 
remain  seated  at  the  door,  —  all  of  which  was  executed, 
as  he  said.  The  eight  chiefs  entered  singing,  holding 
their  calumet,  which  they  passed  several  times  over  Bien- 
ville,  from  his  head  to  his  feet,  in  sign  of  union,  pass- 
ing their  hands  over  his  stomach,  then  over  theirs ; 
after  which  they  presented  him  their  calumet  to  smoke. 
He  pushed  the  calumet  aside  with  contempt,  and  said 
he  wished  to  hear  their  speeches  and  know  their 
thoughts  before  he  smoked  with  them.  This  discon- 
certed the  chiefs,  who  went  out  of  the  tent  and  pre- 
sented their  calumets  to  the  sun.  One  of  them,  the 
great  priest  of  the  temple,  fixing  his  looks  on  the  sun, 
raising  his  arms  over  his  head,  invoked  it  in  prayer. 
Then  they  re-entered  the  tent,  and  again  presented  their 
calumets.  Bienville,  as  if  bored  by  their  ceremonies, 
said  to  them  that  they  had  to  tell  him  what  satisfaction 
they  were  going  to  give  him  for  the  five  Frenchmen 
whom  they  had  assassinated.  This  stunned  them  ;  they 
hung  their  heads  without  answering.  At  which  Bien- 
ville made  a  sign  to  have  them  seized  and  conducted  to 
the  prison  he  had  prepared  for  them.  They  were  put 
in  irons.  In  the  evening,  bread  and  meat  were  pre- 
sented to  them.  They  refused  to  eat.  All  sang  their 
death-song.  At  nightfall,  Bienville  had  brought  to  his 
tent  the  great  chief  of  the  nation,  called  the  Great 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  21? 

Sun,  his  brother,  Stung  Serpent,  and  a  second 
brother,  surnamed  the  Little  Sun.  As  they  seemed  half 
dead  already,  Bienville,  to  reassure  them,  commenced 
by  promising  them  not  to  put  them  to  death.  He  told 
them  he  knew  it  was  not  by  their  orders  that  the  five 
Frenchmen  had  been  assassinated  ;  that  for  his  satisfac- 
tion, he  wished  not  only  the  heads  of  the  murderers 
brought  to  him,  but  the  heads  of  the  chiefs  who  had 
given  the  order ;  that  the  scalps  would  not  content  him, 
that  he  wished  their  heads,  so  as  to  recognize  them  by 
their  tattooed  marks ;  that  he  gave  them  that  night  to 
consult  among  themselves  as  to  the  measures  they  had 
to  take  to  accord  him  a  prompt  satisfaction,  otherwise 
he  might  take  a  stand  bad  for  their  nation.  He  added 
that  they  were  not  ignorant  of  the  credit  he  had  among 
all  his  savage  allies  ;  that  it  would  be  easy  to  declare  war 
against  them  and  to  destroy  all  their  eight  villages,  with- 
out risking  the  life  of  a  single  Frenchman  ;  that  they 
must  remember  that  in  1704,  when  the  Tchioumachaqui 
(Chetimachas)  assassinated  a  missionary  and  three 
Frenchmen,  upon  their  refusal  to  deliver  up  the  mur- 
derers, all  of  his  allied  nations  had  been  set  upon  them, 
so  that  from  four  hundred  families  they  were  reduced,  in 
less  than  two  years,  to  ninety.  He  then  cited  to  them 
an  example  which  he  had  made  in  1707,  when,  as  he 
reminded  them,  lie  had  condemned  a  Frenchman  to 
death  for  killing  two  Pascagoula  Indians.  In  1703,  the 
Coiras  chiefs  had  made  no  difficulty  about  putting  to 
death  five  of  their  warriors  who  had  killed  a  missionary 
and  two  other  Frenchmen  ;  and  that,  in  that  same  year, 
he  had  forced  the  chief  of  the  Touachas  to  put  to 
death  two  of  their  men  who  had  assassinated  a  Chicka- 


218  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

saw;  and  in  1715,  the  Choctaws  had  furnished  him  the 
same  satisfaction;  the  Mobilians,  in  1707,  had  brought 
him  the  head  of  one  of  their  tribe  who  had  killed  a  Tou- 
acha,  and  that  in  1 709  the  Pascagoulas,  having  killed  a 
Mobilian,  he  had  forced  them  to  render  satisfaction  to 
the  injured  parties. 

This  speech,  the  truth  of  which  they  could  not  con- 
test, and  which  they  do  not  seem  to  have  doubted, 
made  a  great  impression  on  the  Natchez  chiefs.  They 
listened  with  great  attention,  and  made  no  attempt  to 
answer.  Visibly,  however,  they  seemed  to  suffer  most 
acutely  from  the  humiliation  of  being  put  in  irons,  like 
their  vassals. 

The  next  morning,  at  daylight,  the  three  brother 
chiefs  asked  to  speak  to  Bienville.  They  were  brought 
into  his  presence.  They  prayed  his  attention  to  the 
fact  that  there  was  no  one  in  the  village  of  sufficient 
authority  to  put  the  men,  whose  heads  he  demanded,  to 
death  ;  that  if  he  would  permit  it,  the  chief,  the  Ser- 
pent, as  the  head  of  the  nation,  would  go  and  accom- 
plish the  dangerous  mission.  This  Bienville  refused, 
putting  in  the  place  of  the  Serpent  his  younger  brother, 
the  Little  Sun,  whom  he  embarked  immediately  in  a 
pirogue  armed  with  twelve  soldiers  and  an  officer.  He 
was  landed  two  leagues  below  his  village,  whither  he 
made  his  way  by  land. 

The  next  day  two  Canadians  arrived  from  the  upper 
river  in  safety,  having  seen  and  profited  by  the  parch- 
ment advertisements ;  and  two  days  later,  the  Canadian 
and  Iroquois  returned  from  their  mission  with  eleven 
Frenchmen  whom  they  had  met  seven  leagues  above 
the  Natchez,  and  saved  from  the  ambush  prepared  for 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  2IQ 

them.  The  reinforcement  was  all  the  more  welcome, 
as  it  included  seven  pirogues  loaded  with  meat  and 
meal,  which  were  beginning  to  run  low  on  the  river 
island.  They  reported  that  a  pirogue,  with  one  Cana- 
dian and  two  Illinois,  who  had  separated  from  the  party, 
had  been  taken  by  the  Natchez. 

Five  days  after  the  Little  Sun  departed,  he  returned, 
fetching  with  him  three  heads,  of  which  (with  the  aid 
of  Pennicaut)  only  two  were  identified  as  belonging 
to  the  criminals  concerned  in  the  assassination.  Bienville 
summoned  the  chiefs  to  his  presence,  and  causing  the 
rejected  head  to  be  thrown  at  their  feet,  remarked  that 
in  endeavouring  to  impose  upon  him  they  had  sacri- 
ficed an  innocent  man.  The  chiefs  confessed  that  the 
'head  was  that  of  a  warrior  who  had  taken  no  part  in 
the  killing  of  the  Frenchmen,  but  that  being  the  brother 
of  one  of  the  murderers  who  had  escaped,  they  had  put 
him  to  death  in  his  place.  Bienville,  showing  his  dis- 
pleasure at  the  incomplete  punishment  and  insufficient 
number  of  heads,  told  them  that  they  would  have  to 
send,  on  the  morrow,  another  warrior,  another  chief,  to 
their  village,  to  obtain  what  he  demanded.  The  Little 
Sun  was  put  in  irons  and  imprisoned  like  the  others. 
He  had  brought  with  him,  in  a  vain  attempt  at  propitia- 
tion, the  last  prisoners  of  the  Natchez,  —  the  Canadian 
and  two  Illinois  Indians  whom  he  had  delivered  from 
the  stake,  where  they  were  bound,  to  be  burned. 

The  next  day,  two  warriors  and  the  great  priest  of 
the  temple  were  sent  under  a  guard  to  the  Natchez  vil- 
lage. They  were  confident  of  fetching  back  the  head 
of  the  chief  White-Earth,  the  leader  of  the  movement 
against  the  French.  The  same  day  Davion  sent  a 


22O  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

warning  to  Bienville  from  the  Tunicas  that  the  Natchez 
were  arming  to  rescue  their  chiefs  or  perish  with  them. 
The  Tunicas  offered  forty  of  their  bravest  warriors  for 
the  emergency  ;  but  Bienville,  suspicious  of  all  the  natives, 
assured  them  that  he  was  not  at  all  afraid,  but  that  they 
would  do  him  a  favour  by  continuing  to  send  their  spies 
among  the  Natchez,  and  keeping  him  informed  of  their 
movements. 

The  high  water  of  the  Mississippi  began  to  encroach 
upon  the  island.  It  rose  until  even  the  highest  part 
was  overflowed  a  half  foot  deep.  The  weather  was  ex- 
cessively hot.  Fevers  broke  out,  and  the  men  suffered 
severely  from  colics  and  pains  in  their  limbs  from  living 
constantly  in  the  wet.  Bienville  had  to  abandon  his 
t(  .t  and  take  to  a  scaffolding.  An  elevated  powder 
n  .gazine  had  also  to  be  constructed. 

.  The  chief,  Serpent,  caught  the  fever.  Bienville 
had  his  irons  removed,  and  permitted  him  and  his 
brothers  to  pass  the  days  with  him  in  his  lodgings. 
During  their  contracted  companionship  there  was  abun- 
dant time  and  opportunity  for  the  Canadian  to  exercise 
to  the  utmost  his  inflexible  influence  over  savage  minds. 
His  threats,  reproaches,  and  exhortations  drew  tears 
and  sighs  from  his  unfortunate  prisoners.  They  agreed 
as  to  the  treason  and  culpability  of  their  nation,  per- 
sisting in  their  assurances,  however,  which  they  said  the 
Frenchmen  in  Natchez  could  prove,  that  they  per- 
sonally had  never  taken  part  in  any  of  the  councils  held 
to  invite  the  English  to  come  there  ;  and  as  for  the  kill- 
ing of  the  Frenchmen,  they  had  only  heard  of  it  eight 
days  afterwards,  and  that  they  then  regretted  and  wept 
over  it,  weeping  as  they  spoke.  Bienvilbe  pressing 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  221 

them  to  further  confidence,  they  related  everything  as  it 
had  happened,  confessing  that  the  three  warrior  chiefs 
of  Chestnut,  White  Earth,  and  Grigas  villages  were  the 
causers  of  all  the  trouble,  that  it  was  they  who  had  in- 
vited the  English  to  their  villages,  and  it  was  they  who 
had  ordered  the  massacre  of  the  Frenchmen.  Two  of 
them  were  at  that  moment  in  the  French  prison,  their 
foster-brother,  The  Bearded,  and  Alahoflechia ;  but  the 
third,  White  Earth,  had  not  come  with  them.  They 
said  that  for  a  year  these  chiefs  had  acquired  such 
power  over  the  nation  that  they  were  more  feared  and 
obeyed  than  even  they,  the  heads  of  the  nation.  The 
Serpent  added  that  there  were  two  other  men  in  the 
prison  who  had  taken  part  in  the  killing,  and  that  he 
knew  of  none  others  besides. 

Bienville  then,  for  his  part,  confessing  that  he  had 
always  had  his  doubts  about  their  being  involved  m 
the  affair,  informed  them  that  they  should  no  longer 
be  treated  as  prisoners.  He  had  their  beds  made  in 
his  quarters,  where  they  henceforth  slept. 

On  the  25th  of  May,  ten  days  after  their  departure, 
the  deputation  sent  for  the  head  of  White  Earth  re- 
turned without  it.  He,  they  said,  had  taken  flight ;  but 
they  restored  several  of  the  slaves  taken  from  the  mas- 
sacred Frenchmen,  and  much  of  their  property. 

The  sickness  that  increased  among  his  men  daily,  and 
no  doubt  the  conviction  that  he  had  reached  the  limit 
of  his  power  over  the  Natchez,  forced  Bienville  to  put 
an  end  to  his  war  of  negotiation.  On  the  ist  of  June  he 
ordered  all  the  Natchez  in  the  prison,  where  they  had 
been  confined  for  a  month,  with  the  exception  of  the 
four  certified  criminals,  to  be  brought  before  him  ;  and 


222  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

in  the  presence  of  their  three  chiefs  he  declared  his 
conditions  of  peace  to  them  :  that  they  should  give 
their  word  to  kill  White  Earth  so  soon  as  they 
could  catch  up  with  him,  and  deliver  his  head  to  the 
French  officer  stationed  at  Natchez ;  that  they  should 
consent,  without  delay,  to  the  putting  to  death  of  the 
two  chiefs  and  two  warriors  then  in  prison  and  in  irons, 
as  reparation  for  their  killing  the  Frenchmen ;  that  they 
should  restore  all  that  they  had  stolen,  and  force  their 
men  to  pay  for  the  value  of  what  had  been  lost,  in  skins 
and  provisions ;  that  they  should  pledge  their  nation 
to  cut  two  thousand  five  hundred  pieux,  thirteen  feet 
and  ten  inches  long,  of  Acacia  wood,  and  transport  them 
to  make  a  fort  on  the  spot  on  the  banks  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi which  would  be  designated  to  them  ;  and  that 
besides,  they  should  engage  to  furnish  bark  from  three 
thousand  cypress-trees  to  cover  the  buildings  in  the  fort 
with,  and  that  before  the  end  of  July. 

Whatever  the  conditions  to  the  Indians,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, there  was  no  alternative  but  to  accept  them. 
The  chiefs  did  it  with  a  grace  that  in  days  past  would 
have  been  called  royal.  They  thanked  Bienville,  each 
one  making  an  harangue,  in  which  they  no  doubt  ex- 
pressed all  the  regret  for  the  past,  and  some  of  the  pro- 
testations for  the  future,  with,  perhaps,  a  modicum  of 
the  devotion  to  and  admiration  of  the  French  attri- 
buted to  them  by  Richebourg.  They  all  repeated  the 
articles  and  conditions  of  the  proposed  peace,  binding 
themselves  not  only  to  execute  them  faithfully,  but  to 
perform  even  more  than  was  required. 

After  their  speeches  the  chiefs  asked  Bienville  if  he 
would  permit  them  again  to  offer  their  calumet.  He 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  223 

replied  that  it  was  not  yet  time  for  that,  they  must  first 
return  to  their  villages,  assemble  their  warriors,  and  ex- 
plain the  conditions  upon  which  he  accorded  peace  to 
them,  and  that  he  would  send  an  officer  and  two  soldiers 
with  them  to  see  that  they  did  it. 

The  four  guilty  ones,  in  the  prison,  not  doubting  of 
the  fate  reserved  for  them,  recommenced  their  death- 
chants.  The  Serpent,  fearing  the  commotion  in  their 
villages  when  the  returning  Indians  brought  the  news  of 
the  proposed  execution  of  such  famous  warriors,  prayed 
Bienville  to  give  out  that  they  were  merely  to  be  taken 
down  to  the  colony,  to  the  governor,  who  would  decide 
upon  them.  He  himself  visited  them  in  prison  to  tran- 
quillize them,  assuring  them  that  they  were  not  to  be 
put  to  death. 

Two  days  afterwards  all  the  Natchez,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Serpent  and  the  Little  Sun,  kept  as  hostages, 
were  restored  to  their  villages.  The  aide-major,  Pail- 
loux,  and  two  soldiers  accompanied  them,  under  instruc- 
tions from  Bienville  to  remain  with  one  soldier  at  the 
principal  village  in  case  the  nation  accepted  the  terms, 
sending  one  soldier  and  a  chief  to  the  island  to  render 
an  account  of  it.  He  was  also  to  search  for  the  most 
suitable  site  near  the  river  for  a  fort. 

On  the  yth  of  June  the  pirogue  bore  back  to  the 
island  nine  old  men  of  the  Natchez  and  the  soldier, 
bearing  Pailloux'  written  account  of  what  had  taken 
place,  the  great  joy  of  the  natives  at  having  their  chiefs 
restored  to  them,  and  their  disposition  to  do  all  that 
was  demanded  of  them.  Pailloux  also  had  found  a 
most  advantageous  position  for  a  fort,  near  the  river. 
The  nine  patriarchs  presented  their  calumet,  which  Bien- 


224  JEAN  KAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

ville  accepted,  and  smoked  with  great  ceremony.  He 
then  presented  his,  which  was  likewise  accepted  and 
smoked.  The  next  day  the  old  men  returned.  The 
Little  Sun  was  allowed  to  go  with  them,  but  the  Serpent 
was  still  retained  as  a  hostage.  A  pirogue  at  the  same 
time  took  to  Pailloux  the  axes,  spades,  pickaxes,  and 
other  instruments  necessary  for  building  the  fort.  On  the 
following  day  the  two  imprisoned  braves  had  their 
heads  broken  by  the  soldiers.  De  Richebourg,  one  of 
the  sufferers  from  illness,  was  permitted  to  return  to 
Mobile.  His  report  to  the  governor  was  anything  but 
approved  of.  Cadillac  pronounced  Bienville's  conduct 
as  against  the  rights  of  humanity,  and  execrable.  The 
force  and  influence  of  this  judgment,  however  just,  was 
nullified  in  the  small  community  by  a  recent  stroke  of 
Cadillac's  own  against  the  Indians,  of  one  of  which  he 
even  boasted  to  Pontchartrain  :  having  induced  a  Choc- 
taw  chief  to  assassinate  his  brother,  by  promising  him 
the  murdered  man's  position.  And  as  Duclos  perti- 
nently remarked,  in  quoting  the  governor's  dictum  to 
the  minister,  Cadillac  would  have  blamed  Bienville,  no 
matter  what  the  latter  had  done. 

The  day  after  De  Richebourg  left,  Bienville  delivered 
himself  of  his  two  remaining  Natchez  prisoners,  by  giv- 
ing them  in  charge  to  a  party  of  Canadian  traders,  who 
were  resuming  their  journey  with  their  peltry  to  the 
mouth  of  the  river.  Their  orders  were  to  knock  the 
chiefs  on  the  head  when  they  were  about  ten  or  twelve 
leagues  from  the  island.  As  they  were  taking  them  to 
the  boats  to  embark  them,  The  Bearded  interrupted  his 
death-chant  to  sing  his  war-song.  He  related  his  won- 
derful deeds  against  different  nations,  and  the  number 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  22$ 

of  scalps  he  had  raised.  He  called  out  the  five  French- 
men whom  he  had  had  killed,  and  said  he  died  with 
regret  at  not  having  killed  more.  The  Serpent,  who 
stood  looking  on  and  listening  attentively,  could  not  con- 
ceal his  disgust  at  such,  to  him,  unintelligent  conduct ; 
turning  to  Bienville,  he  said,  "  He  is  my  brother,  but  I 
do  not  regret  him  ;  you  are  ridding  us  of  a  bad  man." 

As  the  Mississippi  did  not  fall,  and  the  island  still  re- 
mained several  inches  under  water,  Bienville  was  forced 
to  send  his  sick  men  and  convalescents  to  the  high  lands 
of  the  Tunicas,  where  the  Indians  cared  for  them  as- 
siduously, and  kept  them  supplied  with  fresh  beef  and 
venison. 

A  party  of  Natchitoches  arriving  at  the  Tunicas'  with 
a  pirogue-load  of  salt  to  sell,  Bienville  heard  from  them 
of  the  movement  of  a  large  party  of  Spaniards  from 
Mexico  towards  Red  River,  with  the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing an  establishment  there.  He  hurried  off  immediately 
a  sergeant  with  six  soldiers  to  the  head  of  Red  River  to 
forestall  them  by  at  least  an  official  proprietorship. 

On  the  2 ad  of  July,  De  Pailloux  reported  the  fort 
in  a  tenable  condition.  Bienville,  making  a  levy  of 
thirty  rowers  upon  the  Tunicas,  abandoned  his  amphi- 
bious quarters,  and  with  what  remained  of  his  force, 
proceeded  up  the  river.  He  had  not  ten  well  soldiers 
in  his  company.  The  Serpent,  who  was  still  with  them, 
summoned  to  the  landing-place  a  hundred  and  fifty  of 
his  men,  who  transferred  the  baggage  from  the  boats  to 
the  fort  on  the  same  day  that  they  arrived  there. 

The  Indians  were  still  furnishing  their  contributions 
of  timber  and  cypress-bark.  In  the  course  of  the 
month  the  fortifications  and  buildings  were  completed, 
15 


226  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

and  the  flag  of  France  floated  over  a  conquered  country 
and  a  subdued  nation.  Like  the  Tunicas,  the  surround- 
ing tribes  were  quick  to  reaffirm  themselves  with  the 
successful  party,  and  claim  alliance  with  such  accom- 
plished foes.  The  Yazous  and  Ossagoulas  came  with 
their  calumet  to  Bienville,  who  received  them  with  his 
and  their  punctilious  etiquette,  and  the  same  day  the 
whole  strength  of  the  Natchez  villages  turned  out  to 
dance  and  sing,  and  rejoice  before  the  rude  but  grim 
walls  of  that  tyrant,  military  force,  which  they  had  raised 
against  themselves. 

At  the  end  of  August  such  peace  and  tranquillity 
reigned  over  the  so-recently  convulsed  community  that 
Bienville  felt  justified  in  handing  his  command  over  to 
De  Pailloux,  while  he  went  upon  the  not  very  pleasant 
mission  of  making  to  his  superior  officer  the  official  re- 
port of  the  termination  of  his  campaign,  —  perhaps  of 
its  justification  ;  for  it  is  safe  to  presume  that  he  had 
not  been  left  in  ignorance  of  Cadillac's  opinion  of  it. 
His  mind  in  going  down  the  river  must  have  been  as 
busily  occupied  with  plans  for  compassing  the  Gascon 
as  it  had  been  with  schemes  against  the  Natchez  in  going 
up.  But  in  this  event  it  was  lost  thought-work. 

When  he  reached  Mobile  on  the  4th  of  October,  a 
communication  from  the  Minister  of  Marine  was  handed 
him.  It  contained  an  order  for  him  to  take  command 
until  the  arrival  of  De  1'Epinay,  named  to  succeed  M. 
de  la  Motte  Cadillac. 

The  Gascon  had  sinned  against  Talleyrand's  dictum. 
In  one  of  his  letters  to  the  Government,  he  says  :  "  I 
think  that  so  much  care,  so  much  trouble,  should  cer- 
tainly merit  the  words  of  the  Scripture,  '  Well  done, 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  22? 

good  and  faithful  servant,'  etc.  .  .  .  but  just  the  oppo- 
site comes  to  me  ;  the  more  I  do,  and  the  better  I  do  it, 
the  more  I  am  ill-treated  and  scolded,  —  which  discou- 
rages me  completely.  Sometimes  the  desire  seizes  me 
to  do  badly,  according  to  the  example  of  those  around 
me,  to  see  if  I  should  not  succeed  better."  No  time  was 
granted  him  to  put  the  latter  policy  in  practice ;  and 
whatever  his  deserts  or  his  idea  of  them,  and  his  merit 
of  the  Scriptural  encomium,  he  received  from  Crozat  but 
the  paltry  recognition  expressed  in  writing  to  the  minis- 
ter, "  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  all  the  disorders  of  which 
M.  de  la  Motte  complains  come  from  the  bad  adminis- 
tration of  M.  de  la  Motte  Cadillac  himself." 

Pontchartrain's  tribute  was  as  follows  :  "  Messieurs 
de  la  Motte  Cadillac  and  Duclos,  who  have  characters 
incompatible,  without  having  the  intelligence  necessary 
for  their  functions,  are  hereby  dismissed  and  replaced." 


228  JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER   XX. 

1717,  1718. 

BIENVILLE'S  disappointment  at  not  succeeding  Ca- 
dillac was  great.  In  the  hearts  of  his  companions, 
friends,  followers,  it  became  resentment,  which  did  not 
bode  well  for  the  new  administration.  There  was  but  a 
short  time  granted  in  which  to  enjoy  their  old  independ- 
ence and  authority  ;  they  had  hardly  begun  to  exercise  it 
before  it  terminated.  In  the  beginning  of  March,  1717, 
tsvo  war-vessels  escorted  into  the  harbour  "  La  Paix," 
which,  with  the  new  officials,  fifty  emigrants  and  three 
companies  of  infantry,  brought  the  usual  modicum  of 
ministerial  instructions  and  reprehensions,  with  one  slight 
variation  in  the  way  of  recognition.  Bienville  received 
the  Cross  of  St.  Louis,  and  the  concession  of  Horn 
Island,  —  in  soccage,  however,  not  in  fief,  as  he  had 
asked. 

The  ships  were  witnesses  of  the  revolution  in  nature 
predicted  as  possible  by  Iberville  twenty  years  before. 
A  wind-storm,  driving  the  sand  up  the  channel,  formed 
the  bar  which  has  since  condemned  it.  The  ships  seek- 
ing egress,  where  they  had  entered  over  a  depth  of  twenty 
feet,  met  a  closed  passage  before  them  which  completely 
blocked  them  in.  They  had  to  be  unloaded,  and  carried 
around  through  the  channel  of  Grand  Gozier  Island. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  22Q 

De  1'Epinay  was  an  old  lieutenant  of  marine  who 
had  seen  considerable  service  in  Canada.  Crozat,  with 
more  confidence  in  his  enterprise  than  in  men,  not  only 
gave  him,  as  he  had  done  Cadillac,  an  interest  in  the  pro- 
fits of  the  charter,  but  agreed  to  pay  him  two  thousand 
livres  a  year  if,  in  his  position  as  governor,  he  would 
strictly  and  severely  execute  the  royal  ordinance  pro- 
tecting the  monopoly  of  trade. 

The  minister,  in  a  vain  attempt  to  profit  by  expe- 
rience, condescends  to  be  minutely  particular  in  his 
careful  limitations  to  the  authority  of  governor  and 
royal  commissary,  and  to  be  minutely  solicitous  in  his 
efforts  to  predispose  harmonious  relations  between  them  ; 
"  his  Majesty  wishing,  in  case  of  any  difficulty  not  fore- 
seen, that  they  should  explain  themselves  one  to  another, 
in  mildness  and  amity,  and  always  with  a  view  to  their 
service  and  to  the  public  good."  But  the  danger  pro- 
vided for  is  never  that  which  comes  to  pass.  The  in- 
structions based  on  what  was  done  and  finished  were, 
as  usual,  lamentably  deficient  as  a  guide  in  the  future. 

De  1'Epinay  and  Hubert,  his  commissioner,  either 
from  natural  temperament  or  the  effect  of  administra- 
tive instructions,  broke  the  precedent  set  by  past  gov- 
ernors and  commissioners  by  fulfilling  their  official 
functions  in  harmony.  The  discord  came  from  the  band 
of  men,  the  discoverers  of  the  country,  —  its  develop- 
ers, defenders,  its  holders  for  the  past  twenty  years,  who 
resented  the  ministerial  belittling  of  them,  the  hamper- 
ing of  their  conduct,  their  subordination  to  non-com- 
petent aliens.  The  growing  coterie  of  rival  French 
officers  excited  their  jealousy,  their  distrust ;  and  the 
Canadians  resembled  too  nearly  their  savage  friends  to 


230  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

submit  to  what  they  could  resist,  and  forgive  where  they 
could  resent. 

The  contest  broke  out  sharply.  The  government  was 
administered  with  all  preciseness,  owing  perhaps  to  the 
very  enmity  which  divided  the  officials  into  two  camps. 
Bienville  naturally  found  De  1'Epinay  arbitrary  and  venal. 
As  for  his  method  of  governing  the  Indians,  he  wrote 
to  Hubert  he"  could  understand  nothing  about  it.  He 
wrote  to  the  minister  that  De  1'Epinay  had  seized  all 
jurisdiction,  civil  and  criminal,  publishing  ordinances  of 
police,  giving  his  orders  to  the  treasurer,  withholding 
for  himself  the  presents  intended  by  the  Government 
for  the  Indians,  carrying  on  trade  for  himself,  but  put- 
ting in  irons  any  one  who  imitated  his  example,  and  — 
always  a  telling  accusation  to  the  court  of  Louis  XIV. 
and  the  Regent  —  led  a  scandalous  life.  He  had  pro- 
mulgated an  ordinance  against  the  selling  of  brandy  to 
the  Indians,  than  which  nothing  could  have  made  him 
more  unpopular  with  his  compatriots,  as  brandy  was  not 
only  their  most  lucrative  article  of  commerce,  but  their 
most  effective  means  of  assuring  themselves  of  the  affec- 
tions of  the  natives. 

Hubert,  who  was  the  active  organ  of  the  adminis- 
tration, couched  his  resentment  in  a  broad,  but  safely 
damnatory  statement,  which  could  not  be  met  with  either 
proof  or  denial :  he  charged  that  Bienville  was  pen- 
sioned by  the  Spanish  Government.  It  was  an  accusa- 
tion for  which  Bienville  never  forgave  him,  and  which 
he  never  personally  or  officially  omitted  an  opportunity 
to  revenge. 

The  administration,  such  as  it  was,  was  of  short  dura- 
tion. Crozat,  suffering  from  the  fulfilment  of  the  pre- 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  2$l 

diction  of  the  knowing  ones  at  the  beginning  of  his 
charter,  terminated  his  experiment  of  instituting  a  vast 
lucrative  commerce  where  there  was  possibility  for  only 
trade.  His  prayer  to  be  relieved  of  his  magnificent 
privilege  and  bad  bargain  was  granted,  and  Louisiana 
and  the  Mississippi,  wholesale  and  retail,  with  the  one 
spiritual  exception  of  souls,  which  still  were  a  monopoly 
of  the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  was  thrown  into  a  parcel 
with  the  peltry  trade  of  Canada  (whose  charter  oppor- 
tunely expired  at  the  time),  and  given  over  for  twenty- 
five  years  to  a  Company  called  the  Western.  The  king? 
in  virtue  of  his  authority  to  name  the  directors,  gave  the 
presidency  of  it  to  John  Law.  Among  the  directors  was 
D'Artaguette,  now  receiver-general  of  finances  of  Auch. 

The  charter  of  the  Western  Company,  like  .that  of 
Crozat,  was  based  not  so  much  upon  false  hopes  and 
statements  as  upon  a  false  estimate  of  the  time  neces- 
sary to  turn  a  colony  into  a  good  financial  investment. 
The  usual  attempt  to  make  it  profitable  before  it  was 
self-supporting  was  to  be  made,  —  an  attempt  which 
bade  fair  to  press  hard  on  the  Company  first,  and  the 
colonists  afterwards. 

There  was  no  time,  with  a  future  of  but  twenty-five 
years,  to  wait  for  natural  growth  and  development.  The 
seed  which  should  have  been  fructifying  for  twenty  years 
past  was  still  to  be  sowed.  But  the  Company  of  1718, 
like  any  company  or  trust  of  to-day,  proposed  to  incu- 
bate for  nature,  and  the  various  artificial  stimuli  of 
lethargic  prosperity  were  to  be  remorselessly  applied  to 
Louisiana.  In  other  words,  Louisiana  was  to  be 
"boomed,"'  and  by  the  archetypal  "boomer"  of  finan- 
cial history.  John  Law. 


232  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

Agriculture,  not  mining,  was  the  new  countersign  (al- 
ways following  Iberville's  and  Bienville's  policy).  Large 
concessions  of  land  were  to  be  granted,  on  condition  of 
settlement  and  cultivation  ;  plantations  were  to  be  laid 
off  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi ;  tobacco,  rice,  silk, 
indigo,  tar,  and  ship-timber  were  to  be  exported  ;  abun- 
dant imports  of  provisions  and  merchandise  were  to 
render  unnecessary,  and  consequently  mitigate,  the  sup- 
pression of  the  illicit  trade  with  Pensacola. 

There  was  obviously  but  one  man  in  the  colony  capa- 
ble of  handling  it  under  the  new,  or,  it  might  be  said, 
any,  conditions.  De  1'Epinay  was  summarily  recalled, 
and  he,  Bienville,  was  made  commandant-general,  or  gov- 
ernor, with  a  salary  of  six  thousand  livres  a  year.  Hubert 
was  retained,  and  named  commissioner-general,  with  a 
salary  of  five  thousand  livres  a  year. 

These  appointments  and  the  backing  up  of  them  by 
three  ships  with  provisions,  merchandise,  and  emigrants, 
threw  the  colonists  into,  for  them,  the  novel  excitement 
and  exhilaration  of  hope  and  enterprise. 

Bienville,  without  further  delay,  executed  the  oft-re- 
peated orders  to  take  possession  of  St.  Joseph's  Bay,  — 
the  unfortunate  site  of  the  apotheosis  of  La  Salle's 
Mississippi  attempt.  Chateauguay  was  sent  there  with  a 
detachment  of  fifty  soldiers.  He  built  a  fort  upon  the 
ill-fated  spot ;  but  French  possession  of  it  was  no  better 
assured  thereby  than  in  the  first  instance.  In  a  short 
while  the  Spaniards  persuaded  the  greater  part  of  the 
garrison  to  desert,  and  the  difficulties  of  sustaining  the 
remainder,  not  in  allegiance,  but  in  life,  caused  their 
withdrawal  during  the  course  of  the  year. 

An  engineer  was  sent  to  sound  the  bar  of  the  river. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  233 

Bienville  and  Chateauguay  were  also  instructed  to  make 
soundings.  Drags  and  grapnels  were  sent,  to  be  tried, 
for  the  Mississippi  scheme  demanded  at  least  a  passage 
into  the  Mississippi. 

Bienville's  repeated  demands  for  an  establishment 
upon  the  Mississippi  finally  found  a  hearing ;  but  he  was 
advised  that  the  location  was  still  to  be  considered.  He 
was  asked  whether  Manchac  would  not  be  better,  on 
account  of  its  double  communication  with  Mobile  by 
lake  and  river,  and  its  command  of  Red  River.  Waiving 
such  distant  advice  and  judgment,  and  seizing  the  gol- 
den opportunity  of  means  and  authority  once  more  in 
his  hand,  Bienville  took  fifty  men  himself  and  put  them 
at  once  to  clearing  the  land  and  building  lodgings  on 
the  ground  selected  by  himself  years  before,  and  to  be 
abandoned  for  no  Manchac ;  the  spot,  a  ridge  of  high 
land  about  thirty  leagues  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, lying  between  the  river  and  Lake  Pontchar- 
train,  with  easy  portage  and  bayou  communication  be- 
tween the  two,  —  the  one  site  in  his  judgment  for  the 
city  destined,  as  he  was  assured,  to  become  the  capital 
of  the  Mississippi  valley.  The  map  of  the  valley  it- 
self was  divided  out  over  in  France  by  the  Company, 
with  the  showy  policy  of  such  landed  enterprises. 
To  Law  was  conceded  four  leagues  square  upon  the 
Arkansas.  A  company,  headed  by  Leblanc,  Secretary 
of  State,  the  Comte  de  Belleville,  and  the  Marquis 
d'Auleck,  took  possession  of  the  Yazous.  Concessions 
at  Natchez  were  made  to  the  commissioner,  Hubert, 
and  to  a  company  of  St.  Malo  merchants.  Natchito- 
ches  was  conceded  to  Bernard  de  la  Harpe,  the  com- 
piler of  the  "Journal  Historique ;  "  Tunicas  to  St. 


234  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNEt 

Reine ;  Pointe  Couple  to  De  Meuse ;  the  present  site 
of  Baton  Rouge  to  Diron  d'Artaguette  ;  the  bank  of  the 
Mississippi  opposite  Manchac  to  Paris  Duvernay ;  the 
Tchoupitoulas  lands  to  De  Muys  ;  that  of  the  Oumas  to 
the  Marquis  d'Ancouis  ;  Cannes-Brule'es  was  given  to  the 
Marquis  d'Artagnac ;  the  bank  opposite  to  De  Guiche, 
De  la  Houssaie,  and  De  la  Houpe  ;  Bay  St.  Louis  to 
Madame  de  Mezieres ;  and  Pascagoulas  to  Madame  de 
Chaumont. 

Ship  after  ship  began  to  arrive  from  France,  loaded 
by  the  new  great  enterprise,  —  soldiers,  officers,  agents, 
concessioners,  and  commissioners  for  the  Company  by 
the  score.  In  one  month  alone,  August,  1718,  three 
\  ships  brought  over  eight  hundred  passengers.  Colo- 
'  nists  were  sent  by  the  townful,  had  there  been  but 
towns  to  receive  them,  —  sixty  for  the  concession  of  M. 
Paris  Duvernay,  at  the  old  village  of  the  Bayagoulas, 
seventy  for  the  concession  of  De  la  Houssaie  at  the  Ya- 
zous  ;  sixty  for  that  of  De  la  Harpe  at  the  Natchitoches  ; 
sixty-eight  for  the  new  post  on  the  Mississippi,  to  be 
called  New  Orleans,  in  honour  of  Law's  patron,  the 
Regent ;  and  smaller  parties  for  smaller  grants  of  land. 

The  small  establishments  of  Mobile  and  Dauphin 
Island  staggered  under  the  sudden  burden  put  upon 
them,  and  Bienville's  powers  were  more  than  taxed  ful- 
filling the  dazzling  French  terms  of  the  Company,  — free 
lodgings,  food,  and  transportation  to  concessions.  The 
concessions  were  scattered  all  over  the  Mississippi 
country  :  boats  and  carts  had  to  be  made  to  forward  the 
emigrants  to  them  ;  provisions  were  consumed  as  fast 
as  landed  ;  and  the  quality  of  the  population  sent,  —  a 
great  number  consisting  of  convicts,  —  forced  a  timely 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  235 

and  earnest  protest  from  Bienville,  despite  his  evident 
yielding  to  the  exhilarating  current  of  the  "  boom." 
He  wrote  that  hardly  a  man  was  sent  who  was  fitted  for 
the  most  necessary  work.  He  asked  that  more  carpen- 
ters and  labourers  be  sent,  or  at  least  men  who  could 
assist  in  making  lodgings  and  transportations  for  them- 
selves ;  or  that  carts  at  least  be  brought  with  them,  and 
enough  provision  to  feed  them  until  they  reached  their 
destination.  His  own  force  of  workmen  was  over- 
whelmed ;  he  had  to  advance  their  pay  to  three  dollars 
a  day.  "  I  have,  nevertheless,"  he  says,  "  been  able  to 
send  M.  de  Boisbriant  up  the  Illinois  with  one  hundred 
men,  and  I  flatter  myself  it  is  a  great  deal.  I  do  not 
fear  even  to  assure  the  council  that  it  was  absolutely 
all  that  could  have  been  accomplished  under  the 
circumstances." 

Among  the  eight  hundred  arrivals  of  August  was  the 
acute  observer  and  genial  raconteur,  _the_first  historian  of 
Louisiana,  Le  Page  du  Pratz.  He  came  with  a  force  of 
feiilnen,  and  selected  a  tract  of  land  to  be  located  near 
the  new  city,  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  already 
as  a  speculation  assuming  attractions  to  capitalists  and 
emigrants.  Du  Pratz  says  his  ship  anchored  in  the  open 
road  before  Dauphin  Island.  As  soon  as  the  Te  Deum 
had  been  sung  in  thankfulness  for  the  safe  voyage,  the 
passengers  and  their  effects  were  landed.  On  the  is- 
land he  was  lodged  and  fed,  not  by  the  Company,  but 
by  a  friend,  an  old  ship-captain,  who  treated  him  to  the 
most  wonderful  good  cheer,  the  fish  particularly  eliciting 
glowing  praise.  Bienville  at  the  very  time  was  absent, 
founding  his  city.  Du  Pratz'  sojourn,  his  three  days  of 
waiting  for  the  return  of  the  commandant-general,  gave 


236  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

him  an  ardent  desire  to  leave  the  sandy,  arid  crystalline 
island,  which  even  the  good  cheer  and  companionship 
could  not  assuage. 

Bienville  expressed  his  satisfaction  that  Du  Pratz  had 
selected  a  location  near  the  capital,  as  he  called  it, 
for  he  said  that  a  good  farm  near  a  city  was  often  of 
greater  profit  than  lordly  lands  in  a  wood.  He  bought 
from  Du  Pratz  a  compass,  —  paying  for  it,  the  author 
chronicles,  an  honest  price.  It  was  for  Du  Tisne',  just 
starting  off  for  a  journey  by  land  to  Canada.  In  a  few 
days  Bienville  had  the  means  of  transportation  in  readi- 
ness, and  Du  Pratz,  provided  with  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion to  the  commandant  of  New  Orleans,  De  Pailloux 
hastened  the  departure  of  his  party  with  as  much  joy,  he 
says,  as  diligence. 

His  boats  followed  the  gently  curving  line  of  the  Gulf 
coast,  as  it  is  called,  camping  the  first  night  at  the 
mouth  of  Pascagoula  River,  passing  the  next  day  before 
Biloxi,  and  then  by  Bay  St.  Louis,  leaving  Horn  Island, 
Ship  Island,  Cat  Island,  behind  them  on  the  left,  —  the 
usual,  and  always  beautiful,  itinerary  of  the  summer 
yacht.  Going  through  the  Rigolets,  camping,  en  pas- 
sant, on  the  Isle  a  Coquilles,  he  entered  Lake  Pontchar- 
train  ;  Pointe  aux  Herbes  and  Bayou  St.  Jean  dropped 
behind  him,  and  Bayou  Schoupique,  which  was  guarded 
by  a  fort,  received  him.  The  boats  ascended  it  for  about 
a  league,  and  landed  at  the  old  village  of  the  Colapissas, 
or  Aqueloupissas,  as  Dupratz  learned  correctly  to  pro- 
nounce the  name  of  the  "  nation  who  see  and  hear." 
The  party  was  received  by  Jean  Lavigne,  a  Canadian 
who  had  bought  the  village  of  the  Aqueloupissas.  Du- 
pratz sought  a  location  for  his  concession  on  the  banks 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  237 

of  the  Bayou  St.  Jean,  at  a  short  half  league,  he  de- 
scribes it,  from  the  situation  of  the  capital  that  was  to 
be,  —  then  only  designated  by  a  clearing  and  a  log 
barracks  covered  with  palmetto-leaves,  the  lodging  for 
the  commandant  and  troops.  Having  apparently  the 
whole  of  Bayou  St.  Jean  to  choose  from,  the  author  be- 
came soon  the  contented  and  undisputed  possessor  of 
his  farm,  and  the  delighted  owner  of  an  Indian  slave, 
than  whom  Shezehezarade  was  not  more  entertaining  to 
her  master.  He  commenced  with  avidity  his  experi- 
ments with  the  soil,  his  observations  of  nature,  and  his 
experiences  with  alligators  and  Indians.  Differing  with 
one  of  the  latter  in  a  barter  of  a  gun  for  some  chickens, 
and  treating  his  correspondent  with  the  suspicion  which 
prudence  had  taught  him  to  use  in  such  affairs  with 
inhabitants  of  the  Old  World,  the  Indian,  incensed, 
took  the  road  to  New  Orleans  and  complained  to 
Bienville.  Dupratz  was  summoned  to  explain  his  pro- 
ceedings. He  did  so  by  exposing  his  opinion,  or  rather 
his  idea,  of  the  savages.  "  The  governor  replied,"  he 
narrates,  "  that  I  did  not  know  these  people  yet,  and 
that  when  I  did  know  them,  I  should  do  them  justice. 
He  spoke  the  truth." 


238  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE   MOYNE, 


CHAPTER  XXI. 
1719. 

ON  the  i  gth  of  April  the  "  Mare'chal  de  Villars  "  and 
the  "  Philippe "  brought  into  port  one  hundred  and 
thirty  passengers.  Among  them  were  De  Serigny  and 
his  son,  a  midshipman  ;  the  former,  returning  decorated 
with  the  cross  of  St.  Louis  and  the  advanced  grade  of 
"  lieutenant  de  vaisseau,"  was  charged  with  a  commis- 
sion to  examine  and  sound,  with  Bienville,  the  coast  of 
Louisiana.1 

But  what  the  ships  brought  of  most  importance  to  the 
colony  was  the  news  of  the  declaration  of  war  between 
France  and  Spain.  At  last  the  moment  had  come  for 
the  getting  of  the  coveted  port  of  Pensacola.  The 
French  hardly  needed  the  advice  given  by  the  Western 
Company  to  Bienville  some  months  previous  to  profit 
by  such  an  opportunity.  They  were  not  the  men  to 
let  an  occasion  of  the  kind  go  by  default.  A  council 
of  war  was  instantly  summoned,  and  measures  in  all 
haste  adopted  to  surprise  the  Spaniards,  who,  ignorant 
of  the  news,  were  carelessly  basking  in  innocent  security. 

The  cargoes  were  discharged  from  the  ships,  and  on 
the  1 3th  of  May  De  Serigny  sailed  out  of  the  roadstead 

1  De  Serigny's  maps  form  the  beginning  of  the  scientific  carto- 
graphy of  the  Mississippi  delta. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  239 

of  Dauphin  Island,  followed  by  the  "  Mare'chal  de  Villars  " 
and  the  "  Comte  de  Toulouse,"  which  latter  vessel  for- 
tunately was  in  port  at  the  time.  They  carried  an  army 
of  a  hundred  and  fifty  soldiers.  Bienville,  with  eighty 
men,  sailed  in  a  sloop. 

Bienville  gives  the  facts  of  his  victory  in  his  official 
report  to  the  minister.  The  approaches  to  the  victory 
are  the  pleasant  duty  of  the  early  historians,  Dupratz 
and  Dumont,  whose  enjoyment  of  what  they  describe 
is  communicated  to  readers  of  the  present  day. 

With  a  fair  wind  the  ships  made  a  good  run  to  Isle 
Ste.  Rosa,  the  outpost  of  the  Spaniards.  Anchoring 
as  close  to  land  as  possible,  the  troops  disembarked  un- 
perceived,  and  easily  mastered  the  small  guard  stationed 
there.  Putting  their  prisoners  in  irons  and  assuming 
their  uniforms,  and  forcing  the  Spanish  drummer  to  beat 
as  usual,  the  Spaniards  who  came  out  at  daybreak  the 
next  morning  to  relieve  guard  were  as  easily  seized, 
disarmed,  and  deprived  of  their  uniforms,  which  served 
to  disguise  more  of  their  enemies.  The  Spanish-uni- 
formed Frenchmen  embarking  in  the  boat  that  had 
brought  out  the  guard,  crossed  the  bay,  entered  the  fort, 
surprised  the  sentinels  on  duty,  and  captured  the  whole 
place,  —  soldiers,  magazine,  store-house,  and  the  com- 
mandant, who  was  still  in  bed,  and  who  claimed  this  as 
his  first  notification  of  the  rupture  between  the  two  Gov- 
ernments. Bienville  says  in  his  despatch  that  simply 
the  commandant  surrendered  the  fort  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  that  he  put  his  brother  Chateauguay  in 
command,  and  according  to  the  terms  of  capitulation  to 
deliver  his  prisoners  in  the  nearest  port,  shipped  the 
entire  garrison  for  Havana  on  his  two  ships,  the  "  Comte 


240  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

de  Toulouse  "  and  the  "  Marechal  de  Villars,"  under 
command  of  De  Richebourg ;  he  then  returned  to 
Mobile.  The  Governor  of  Havana  was  not  devoid  of 
ingenuity  himself.  He  received  De  Richebourg  most 
ceremoniously,  thanking  him  for  the  politeness  of  his 
visit ;  but  no  sooner  were  the  prisoners  in  his  hands  than 
he  captured  the  capturers,  with  their  ships,  placing  the 
soldiers  in.  irons,  and  putting  the  entire  crew,  officers 
and  all,  into  prison,  and,  according  to  the  French  ac- 
counts, treated  them  so  hardly,  fed  them  so  badly,  and 
insulted  them  so  grievously  that  most  of  the  soldiers 
deserted  to  him,  to  deliver  themselves.  He  then 
equipped  the  French  vessels  with  a  Spanish  crew, 
Spanish  soldiers,  and  some  of  the  French  deserters,  and 
sent  them,  with  his  squadron,  to  retake  the  lost  Pensa- 
cola.  They  came  in  sight  of  it  on  the  3d  of  August. 
The  Spanish  vessels  drew  up  behind  Isle  Ste.  Rosa. 
The  French  vessels,  flying  the  French  colours,  boldly  en- 
tered the  channel.  To  the  challenge  of  the  sentry  they 
answered,  "  De  Richebourg."  Scarcely  was  anchor 
dropped,  however,  than  the  French  flag  was  lowered, 
the  Spanish  run  up,  and  three  cannon-shots  were  fired. 
At  the  signal,  the  rest  of  the  squadron  made  their  ap- 
pearance, twelve  sail  in  all.  The  next  day  eighteen 
hundred  men  were  landed,  and  began  the  assault. 

Although  the  return  visit  of  the  Spaniards  was  expected, 
and  in  a  measure  prepared  for,  Chateauguay  found  his 
means  of  defence  as  totally  inadequate  as  his  rivals'  had 
been.  Sixty  of  his  soldiers  immediately  abandoned  him, 
escaping  from  the  fort  and  joining  the  enemy.  The  rest 
showing  every  disposition  to  follow  their  example,  no 
choice  was  left,  upon  the  summons  to  surrender,  but 


SI  EUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  24! 

capitulation.  He  obtained  the  sortie,  with  all  the  hon- 
ours of  war,  and  transportation  to  Old  Spain,  —  a  more 
genial  and  more  advantageous  place  of  imprisonment 
than  Havana,  under  the  circumstances.  He  was  never- 
theless sent  to  Havana.  At  the  news  of  the  Spaniards' 
reappearance  at  Pensacola,  Serigny  had  hastened  by 
land  to  Chateauguay's  assistance  with  a  troop  of  sav- 
ages and  soldiers ;  but  hearing  of  his  surrender  mid- 
way from  some  fugitive  slaves,  he  turned,  and  marched 
as  rapidly  back  to  Dauphin  Island  to  prepare  for  what 
he  had  no  doubt  would  be  the  next  step  in  the  Spanish 
programme. 

In  truth,  he  had  hardly  arrived  at  the  island  before  the 
advance  of  the  Spanish  flotilla  was  sighted.  Three  brig- 
antines  approached,  from  one  of  which  a  boat  was  sent 
to  the  Company's  ship,  "  Le  Philippe,"  with  an  officer 
charged  with  a  letter  to  the  captain.  The  missive,  dated 
"on  board  'Notre  Dame  de  Vigogne,'  i3th  August, 
1719,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,"  contained  an  im- 
perative summons  for  the  surrender  of  the  ship,  without 
any  damage  to  it,  under  penalty  of  the  captain's  being 
treated  as  an  incendiary,  and  all  the  French,  including 
Chateauguay  and  his  garrison,  accorded  no  quarter.  A 
cordial  reception,  on  the  contrary,  was  promised  all  those 
who  freely  and  willingly  gave  themselves  up. 

The  captain  of  the  "  Philippe  "  sent  the  Spanish  officer 
with  his  letter  ashore  to  Serigny,  who,  according  to  the 
"Journal  Historique,"  received  him  surrounded  by  his 
soldiers,  Canadians,  and  savages  in  all  their  war-paint 
and  greed  of  scalps ;  and  according  to  Bienville,  told 
him  that  the  Spaniards  could  come  when  they  pleased, 
they  would  find  the  French  prepared  to  receive  them. 

16 


242  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

In  the  mean  time  a  reinforcement  of  soldiers  was 
passed  on  board  the  "Philippe." 

During  the  night  one  of  the  brigantines  entered  the 
bay  and  did  considerable  damage,  capturing  two  boats 
of  provisions  sent  by  Serigny  to  Bienville,  and  pillaging 
and  burning  a  settlement  belonging  to  a  company  of 
Canadians  on  the  Mobile  coast,  half  way  between  the 
fort  and  the  island,  where  a  great  deal  of  property  had 
been  sent  from  the  latter  place  for  security,  and  of  which 
the  booty  consequently  was  large. 

Fortunately  that  night  Bienville  was  sending  a  rein- 
forcement of  white  men  and  Indians  to  his  brother. 
These  fell  upon  the  marauders.  Very  few  escaped. 
Five  were  killed,  the  Indians  scalping  them,  six  were 
drowned  trying  to  regain  their  boats,  and  eighteen  were 
taken  prisoners.  Of  these  latter,  the  deserters  from  the 
French  had  their  heads  broken  with  a  hatchet,  in  default 
of  an  executioner  to  inflict  the  legal  capital  punishment. 
As  it  was  impossible  to  defend  the  bay  or  the  mouth  of 
the  river,  no  more  boats  of  provisions,  or  otherwise,  were 
risked  to  Bienville.  All  forces  were  turned  to  putting 
Dauphin  Island  in  a  state  of  defence. 

During  a  high  tide  the  "  Philippe  "  was  brought  in  to 
within  a  pistol-shot  of  land,  and  made  fast  with  pile  and 
cable  in  a  deep  hole,  or  kind  of  bay,  to  the  west  of  the 
island.  With  all  her  guns  bristling  on  the  ocean  tide, 
and  her  reinforced  equipage,  she  presented,  for  the  times, 
a  formidable  citadel  of  defence  to  the  enemy. 

An  intrenched  battery  of  three  twelve-pounders  was 
placed  to  command  the  old  channel.  The  rest  of  the 
island  was  patrolled  by  Serigny,  who,  the  accounts  say, 
multiplied  himself  into  being  everywhere  with  his  mixed 


SIEUR   DE   BIENVILLE.  243 

force,  the  regulars  of  which,  Bienville  says,  were  more 
to  be  dreaded  than  the  enemy. 

Three  days  after  the  brigantines  the  rest  of  the  Spanish 
fleet,  including  the  captured  French  vessels,  hove  in 
sight,  and  anchored  in  the  roadstead.  Once  or  twice  a 
demonstration  of  attack  was  made,  which  was  warded  off 
with  a  counter-demonstration.  Neither  daring  to  land 
nor  approach  within  gunshot  of  the  "  Philippe  "  or  the 
battery,  the  fleet  contented  itself  with  remaining  in  its 
position  for  fourteen  days,  and  canonading  boats  from  a 
safe  and  harmless  distance. 

On  the  24th,  signs  of  departure  were  observed  among 
the  sails  ;  by  the  28th  all  had  disappeared,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  two  large  vessels  left  to  cruise  before  the 
island  and  intercept  its  water  communication. 

The  long  stay  of  the  Spanish  fleet  excited  apprehen- 
sions among  the  French  that  it  was  waiting  to  be  joined 
by  the  squadron  from  Vera  Cruz.  When,  therefore,  on 
the  ist  of  September,  sails  were  again  sighted  in  the 
Gulf,  as  no  ships  were  expected  from  France,  the  gen- 
eral anxiety  became  keen.  It  changed  to  wildest  joy 
as  three  war-ships  of  the  royal  navy  neared,  escorting 
two  loaded  vessels  belonging  to  the  Company.  They 
were  the  "  Hercules,"  of  sixty  cannon,  under  the  Comte 
de  Champmeslin,  the  "  Mars,"  of  fifty-eight,  and  the 
"  Triton,"  of  fifty-six  cannon.  The  Company's  ship,  the 
"  Union,"  armed  with  forty-eight  cannon,  brought  one 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  passengers,  and  the  fleet 
"  Marie "  a  freight  of  provisions  and  merchandise. 
The  Spanish  cruisers  took  flight  for  Pensacola. 

As  soon  as  the  good  news  reached  him,  Bienville 
hastened  from  Mobile,  and  with  Serigny  went  aboard 


244  JEAN  13APTISTE  LE  MOYXE, 

Champmeslin's  ship,  where  a  council  of  all  the  officers, 
military  and  marine,  was  held.  The  recapture  of  Pen- 
sacola  and  capture  of  the  Spanish  fleet  was  the  unani- 
mous determination ;  but  it  was  decided  not  to  proceed 
without  a  fortnight's  preparation.  The  Company's  ships, 
which  were  to  be  joined  to  the  men-of-war,  had  to  be 
unloaded,  the  "  Philippe  "  to  be  got  out  to  sea  again 
and  put  in  trim,  and  Bienville  needed  time  to  get  his 
Indians  together  again  and  prepare  their  provisions. 
It  was  agreed  that  Champmeslin  should  take  command 
of  the  fleet,  and  that  Bienville,  at  the  head  of  a  company 
of  soidiers  and  volunteers,  should  go  in  sloops  as  far  as 
the  Perdido  River,  where  one  of  his  officers  was  to  meet 
him'vith  five  hundred  Indians,  —  all  of  which  was  car- 
ried into  effect.  On  the  i5th  of  September  the  start 
was  '^.ade.  By  the  evening  of  the  i6th  Bienville  had 
inve<.  ?d  the  fort  by  land,  so  that  no  escape  on  that  side 
was  possible.  The  next  morning  Champmeslin  led  his 
fleet  into  the  bay.  The  large  fort  made  very  little  de- 
fence. The  small  one  on  Ste.  Rosa  Island  and  the  ships 
fought  gallantly  for  two  hours,  at  the  end  of  which  all 
surrendered.  The  plundering  of  the  large  fort  was  given 
to  the  Indians,  who  acquitted  themselves,  says  the  "  Jour- 
nal Historique,"  as  men  who  knew  their  trade  ;  but  there 
was  no  scalping,  Bienville  having  given  orders  against  it. 
The  same  authority  also  states  that  Bienville  restrained 
the  ardour  of  his  troops  and  held  them  back  until  Champ- 
meslin had  terminated  his  action,  that  the  latter  might 
have  the  honours  of  the  day,  but  that  when  the  pillaging 
of  the  fort  was  completed,  Champmeslin  took  possession 
of  forts  and  ships,  assigned  the  commands,  decided  upon 
the  prisoners,  and  received  the  swords  of  the  Spanish 


*  SI  EUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  245 

officers,  trenching  upon  the  rights  of  Bienville  as  com- 
mander of  the  province  of  Louisiana,  and  therefore  as 
the  sole  appointer  of  landed  commands  —  which  Bien- 
ville bore  without  protestation,  for  fear  of  prejudicing 
the  service  of  the  king. 

Thirty-five  of  the  French  deserters  were  found  among 
the  Spanish  prisoners.  They  were  tried  before  a  coun- 
cil of  war ;  twelve  were  condemned  to  be  hanged  (and 
were  hanged  from  the  mast  of  the  recaptured  "Comtede 
Toulouse  ''),  and  the  rest  sent  to  the  galleys. 

It  had  been  hoped  that  large  quantities  of  munitions 
of  war  and  provisions  would  be  found  in  the  fort'.  To 
the  disappointment  of  the  conquerors,  the  stores  con- 
tained only  a  fifteen  days'  supply.  Champmesli  .  was 
obliged,  to  get  rid  of  feeding  his  prisoners,  to  send  them 
to  Havana  on  one  of  the  captured  ships.  He  re  uned 
the  superior  officers  as  sureties,  and  demanded  a  re- 
turn of  French  prisoners,  whose  fate,  according  to  a 
letter  received  from  Chateauguay,  was  hardly  in  accord- 
ance with  the  articles  of  war.  The  Governor  of  Havana 
had  not  wished  to  give  food  either  to  officers  or  sailors, 
and  the  latter  were  forced  to  carry  stone  and  do  other 
work  to  gain  a  subsistence. 

Stores  were  replenished  by  several  Spanish  vessels  of 
provisions,  decoyed  into  the  old  port  by  the  exhibition 
of  their  national  flags,  —  one,  a  "  pink,"  carried  eighty 
soldiers,  of  whom  it  is  chronicled  with  evident  satisfac- 
tion that  although  well  clothed  in  good  uniforms,  they 
were  not  despoiled  of  them. 

One  of  the  Company's  vessels,  loaded  with  merchan- 
dise for  Dauphin  Island,  and  with  a  present  of  wine  and 
delicacies  from  the  Company  to  the  officers,  was  sig- 


246  JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE  MOYNE, 

nailed  into  the  new  French  port.  The  officers,  not  need- 
ing the  wine  and  delicacies,  disposed  of  them  at  very 
great  profit. 

The  supineness  of  the  Spaniard  under  dispossession 
was  not  to  be  counted  on  in  the  future.  Before  sail- 
ing away  with  his  squadron,  in  October,  Champmeslin 
burned  the  fort  and  all  the  buildings  behind  him, 
and  left  only  an  officer,  with  a  file  of  men  and  some 
savages,  in  charge,  and  to  give  notice  of  a  new  Spanish 
attempt. 

Bienville  writes  bitterly  of  the  character  and  insuf- 
ficiency of  his  forces,  the  cause  of  this  unsatisfactory 
proceeding  :  — 

"  The  Council  will  permit  me  to  represent  to  it  that  it 
is  very  disagreeable  for  an  officer  in  charge  of  a  colony  to 
have,  to  defend  it,  only  a  band  of  deserters,  convicts,  and 
rascals  who  are  always  ready,  not  only  to  abandon  you,  but 
even  to  turn  against  you.  What  attachment  to  the  country 
can  these  people  have,  who  are  sent  here  by  force,  and 
who  have  no  hope  of  returning  to  their  mother-country  ? 
Can  one  believe  that  they  will  not  use  all  their  efforts  to 
deliver  themselves  from  such  a  situation,  particularly  in  a 
country  as  open  as  this  is,  by  going  either  to  the  side  of 
the  English  or  the  Spaniards?  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is 
absolutely  necessary,  if  it  is  desired  to  preserve  this  colony 
to  the  king,  to  send  as  much  as  possible  only  willing  men, 
and  to  endeavour  to  procure  for  life  here  more  comforts 
than  have  been  enjoyed  up  to  the  present.  ...  At  any 
rate,  what  population  we  have  in  the  colony  is  so  scattered 
among  the  different  establishments  that  our  only  forces 
are  the  savages,  of  whom  we  cannot  make  use  at  present, 
owing  to  the  scarcity  of  provisions.  If  we  had  sufficient 
force  we  should  be  able  to  maintain  ourselves  against  any 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  247 

efforts  of  the  Spaniards,  although  they  are,  with  the  neigh- 
bouring Havana  and  Vera  Cruz,  very  powerful,  —  unless 
,  theyshould  send  large  vessels  to  cruise  on  our  coasts  and 
capture  the  supplies  sent  from  France,  which  is  their  idea, 
from  what  we  have  heard  from  the  French  deserters.  In 
this  manner  it  would  be  very  easy  for  them  to  throw  us  in 
the  last  extremity,  and  put  it  out  of  our  power  to  preserve 
the  colony,  if  the  Company  does  not  send  us  means  strong 
enough  to  make  our  coasts  secure." 


248  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER   XXII. 
1719-1722. 

GROWN  suddenly  by  its  influx  of  population  and 
interests  beyond  its  primitive  colonial  administration  of 
judgment,  Louisiana  bad  readied  the  need  of  the  legal 
forms  and  practices  common  to  the  civilized  world  from 
which  it  sprang.  The  Company  of  the  West  responded 
with  adequate  provisions  ;  but  the  uncertainty  which 
human  character  and  temperament  throws  into  all  ap- 
pointments, caused  the  usual  disappointments  and  re- 
tardation of  public  affairs.  Under  the  circumstances, 
the  prolongation  for  a  short  period  of  gubernatorial 
arbitrariness  (if  such  existed)  would  have  been  better 
for  the  colony. 

The  Superior  Council  of  the  capital,  which  held  a 
sitting  once  a  month,  was  retained  and  reformed,  to  in- 
clude the  governor,  Bienville,  Hubert,  the  commissaire 
ordonnateur,  first  councillor  Boisbriant,  and  Chateauguay, 
royal  officers,  with  three  other  councillors  chosen  from 
among  other  directors  or  agents  of  the  Company,  an 
attorney-general,  and  a  secretary-  This  was  an  appel- 
late court  for  the  smaller  councils,  or  inferior  tribunals, 
established  in  every  locality  where  sufficient  population 
could  be  found  to  furnish  the  constituting  elements,  — 
an  agent  of  the  Company  and  two  ''  notable"  inhabitants, 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  249 

Although,  as  M.  Gayarre  notes,  Bienville  occupied 
the  place  of  honour  at  the  council,  the  real  president  was 
the  first  councillor,  Hubert,  who  in  any  division  of  senti- 
ment would  as  naturally  rally  the  Company's  employees 
to  his  side,  as  Bienville  would  his  brother  and  cousin. 
Unfortunately  in  such  a  division  the  majority  of  voices 
would  not  have  expressed,  and  did  not  express,  the  best 
practical  knowledge  and  judgment.  And  it  was  this 
practical  knowledge  and  judgment  that  the  situation  of 
Louisiana  demanded. 

There  were  the  usual  Indian  troubles  to  the  north ; 
more  than  usually  grave,  in  that  the  English  were  more 
than  usually  successful  in  their  machinations  among 
Chickasaws  and  Choctavvs  ;  but  as  long  as  the  Missis- 
sippi was  kept  open  and  safe  for  the  French,  the  rush 
of  development  of  the  country  by  the  hard-pressed  capi- 
talists of  the  Company  in  France,  left  the  local  rulers 
of  it  no  time  or  thought  for  its  defence,  beyond  Bien- 
ville's  persistently  warning  the  French  against  the  Eng- 
lish traders. 

The  Mississippi  scheme  was  beginning  to  become  the 
Mississippi  bubble.  Inflation  was  preparing  its  usual 
result  of  immolation.  But  the  victims  in  the  Old  World 
were  financial,  those  in  the  new,  human  ;  and  the  wrecks 
of  the  fortunes  which  strewed  the  Rue  Quincampoix 
were  more  than  matched  by  the  corpses  that  strewed 
the  beaches  of  Dauphin  Island  and  Biloxi. 

In  1720  the  ships  from  France  brought  in  emigrants 
by  the  hundred,  hundred  and  fifty,  two  hundred,  four 
hundred,  —  the  "  fillings  "  for  titled  concessions,  or  the 
deluded  peasants  and  traders,  whose  sordid  economies 
had  been  expended  for  the  seigneurial  estates,  with  future 


250  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE   MOYNE, 

nobility  and  fortune,  in  the  New  World,  so  temptingly 
put  upon  the  market  of  a  war-scraped,  famine-stricken 
country  by  the  wonderful  new  Company,  with  its  won- 
derful new  patent  for  coining  money  from  "  faith,"  as 
credulity  was  termed. 

Landed  upon  the  sands  of  Dauphin  Island,  ill  from 
the  voyage,  without  sheker,  with  insufficient  food,  unable 
to  get  away,  unable  to  find  work,  or  gain  anything  by 
cultivating  the  arid  soil,  tortured  and  blinded  by  the  daz- 
zling crystalline  sand  under  the  rays  of  a  tropical  sun, 
exposed  to  the  infections  of  the  ships  from  the  islands, 
always  waiting  and  hoping  for  the  delayed  transportation 
inland,  it  is  easy  to  believe  the  statement  that  most  of 
the  unfortunates  died  of  their  misery. 

The  directors  of  the  Company,  finding  themselves 
more  and  more  helpless  before  the  increasing  compli- 
cations of  their  situation,  more  and  more  inadequate  to 
meet  the  increasing  demands  upon  them,  panic-stricken 
at  the  crisis  which  they  foresaw  impending,  could,  in 
their  ignorances,  grievances,  and  divided  counsels,  think 
of  no  remedial  expedient  but  a  change  of  base. 

Bienville  exerted  himself  in  vain  in  favour  of  his  pro- 
ject, —  establishment  upon  the  Mississippi,  its  coloniza- 
tion by  the  direct  transportation  of  emigrants  to  farms 
on  its  rich  alluvial  soil,  and  their  immediate  self-support 
by  agriculture. 

Hubert  had  his  counter-project,  which  he  had  already 
recommended  to  the  Company,  a  year  before, — the 
centralizing  of  the  colony  at  Biloxi,  with  Ship  Island 
fortified  as  a  port.  Absurd  as  it  seems  now,  absurd  as 
it  must  have  appeared  then  to  the  men  who  had  lived 
through  one  experiment  at  that  spot,  Hubert's  project 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVfLLE.  2$l 

was  adopted  by  the  Superior  Council,  and  received  the 
indorsement  of  the  Company.  Biloxi  henceforth  was  to 
be  the  capital.  The  move  was  effected  with  all  haste,  to 
the  great  expense  to  the  Company,  and  loss  to  the  colo- 
nists. By  1721  Dauphin  Island  was  a  way  station,  Ship 
Island  the  receiving  port,  and  Biloxi  the  depot  of  mer- 
chandise and  emigrants.  The  sequel  is  lamentable. 

The  number  of  emigrants  increased  instead  of  dimin- 
ishing, and  the  quality  of  them  decreased  with  every  ship- 
load. The  Company,  to  keep  up  its  "  boom  "  before  its 
shareholders  in  France  by  its  tide  of  emigration,  was 
exporting  its  scrapings  of  asylums,  hospitals,  reforma- 
tories, and  its  midnight  nettings  of  Paris  streets  by  its 
paid  dog-catchers  of  humanity.  And,  in  addition,  slave- 
ships  began  to  answer  the  demand,  by  bringing  in  their 
naked,  reeking  African  cargo  of  misery,  degradation,  and 
wretchedness,  to  be  dumped  like  ballast  on  Biloxi  beach. 
The  historians  and  romancers  of  the  time  describe  the 
French  side  of  this  peopling  of  the  Mississippi.  What 
took  place  as  a  result  in  Louisiana,  in  the  absence 
of  private  letters,  must  be  inferred  from  such  a  casual 
entry  into  the  "  Journal  Historique  "  as,  "  4th  April, 
1721,  M.  Berranger  .  .  .  was  sent  to  Cape  Francois; 
he  was  to  fetch  back  corn  for  food  for  the  negroes  who 
were  dying  of  hunger  and  misery  on  the  sands  of  Fort 
Louis/'  and  from  the  careful  description  of  Le  Page 
Du  Pratz.  At  the  solicitation  of  a  friend,  who  had 
large  concessions  and  larger  expectations  there,  he  had 
changed  the  location  of  his  farm  from  New  Orleans  to 
Natchez.  About  two  years  after  his  settlement  there  he 
made  a  trip  down  the  river  to  New  Orleans  to  sell  some 
of  his  commodities,  and  also  having  heard  that  all  let- 


252  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE   MOYNE, 

ters  sent  to  France  were  intercepted,  he  wished  to 
assure  himself  of  some  reliable  means  of  communi- 
cation. And  a  propos  of  this,  he  relates  that  although 
not  on  friendly  terms  with  the  commandant  of  Natchez, 
who  was  anxious  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  governor 
at  the  expense  of  everybody,  he  offered  to  take  charge 
of  any  letters  which  the  former  might  have  for  the  latter. 
The  commandant  said  he  had  no  letters,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  Du  Pratz  knew  he  had  letters  for  Bienville. 
Du  Pratz,  equal  to  him,  however,  obtained  from  his 
head  clerk  a  certificate  that  he  had  so  offered  and  been 
refused.  Arrived  in  New  Orleans,  and  hearing  of  the  ar- 
rival of  some  new  concessioners  at  Biloxi,  he  determined 
to  take  his  commodities  there.  Paying  his  respects  to 
the  governor  in  Biloxi,  Bienville  asked  that  official  if 
he  had  no  letters  for  him.  He  was  told  that  Du 
Pratz  had  asked  for  letters  and  been  refused ;  upon 
which  he  said,  coldly,  that  Du  Pratz  had  not  wished 
to  take  charge  of  them.  "  For  all  reply,"  says  the 
historian,  "  I  pulled  out  the  certificate  and  showed  it 
him."  And  then  he  goes  on  with,  — 

"  I  never  could  divine  the  reason  why  the  principal  es- 
tablishment of  the  colony  should  have  been  placed  in  that 
spot,  or  why  it  should  have  been  wished  to  locate  the  capital 
there  ;  nothing  could  have  been  more  contrary  to  good 
sense,  for  not  only  vessels  could  not  approach  it  nearer 
than  four  leagues,  but,  what  was  more  vexatious,  nothing 
could  be  discharged  from  the  ships  there  without  three 
changes  from  smaller  to  smaller  boats,  —  and  even,  to  dis- 
charge the  smallest  boats,  carts  had  to  be  sent  out  over  a 
hundred  paces  into  the  water.  And  what  should  still  have 
averted  the  establishment  of  Biloxi  is  that  the  soil  is  of 
the  most  sterile  ;  it  is  nothing  but  fine  sand,  white  and 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  253 

brilliant,  on  which  it  is  impossible  to  make  a  vegetable 
grow  ;  and  in  addition,  one  was  extremely  annoyed  by  the 
rats,  which  swarm  there,  which  gnaw  even  the  wood  of  the 
guns.  The  famine  had  been  so  great  there  that  more  than 
five  hundred  persons  had  died  of  hunger.  Bread  was  very 
dear,  meat  very  scarce  ;  there  was  only  fish,  in  which  the 
place  abounds,  and  which  was  tolerably  plentiful.  The 
famine  arose  from  the  arrival  of  so  many  of  the  concession- 
ers together,  so  that  not  enough  provisions  were  on  hand 
to  feed  them,  nor  boats  to  transport  them  to  their  destina- 
tion, as  the  Company  was  obligated  to  do.  What  saved 
some,  was  the  great  quantity  of  oysters  found  along  the 
shore ;  but  to  get  them,  one  had  to  go  out  in  the  water,  up 
to  the  thighs,  a  distance  of  a  gunshot  from  the  shore.  If 
this  food  nourished  some,  it  made  others  ill,  which  was  also 
due  to  the  long  time  they  had  to  stay  in  the  water." 

"  Most  of  the  dead  bodies  found  lying  by  heaps  of 
oyster-shells  were  Germans, "says  Dumont,  — Law's  colo- 
nists for  his  own  concessions  on  the  Arkansas  ;  the  most 
regretted  of  his  victims,  on  account  of  the  sterling  quali- 
ties of  the  survivors,  who  have  perpetuated  their  good 
record  of  honest  laboriousness  to  this  day.  The  disas- 
ters were  not  all  land  disasters  ;  the  Company's  vessels, 
as  well  as  the  colony,  are  arraigned  by  such  items  in  the 
"Journal  Historique  "  as  :  "  ist  March,  1721  .  .  .  Ar- 
rived, forty  Germans  for  the  concession  of  M.  Law,  the 
remains  of  two  hundred  embarked  ;  the  others  had  died 
during  the  voyage.  1 7th, '  L'Africain '  .  .  .  arrived  with 
one  hundred  and  ninety  negroes  of  Juida,  of  two  hun- 
dred and  ninety  shipped."  —  "  23d  .  .  .  Arrived  with 
three  hundred  and  fourteen  negroes,  of  four  hundred 
and  fifty-three  shipped."-—  '•'  2Oth  April  .  .  .  The  frigate 
'  Nereide,'  .  .  .  two  hundred  and  ninety-four  negroes, 


254  JEAN-  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

the  remains  of  three  hundred  and  fifty,  .  .  .  bringing 
the  news  that  the  frigate  '  Charles,'  loaded  with  negroes, 
had  been  burned  more  than  sixty  miles  from  the  coast, 
that  most  of  the  crew  had  perished,  that  those  who 
were  saved  had  suffered  much  from  hunger  and  thirst, 
having  been  reduced  to  load  their  sloops  with  several 
negroes  for  subsistence ;  "  and  other  similar  tragedies 
that  might  be  cited. 

A  drunken  sleeping  sergeant,  by  letting  his  lighted 
pipe  fall  in  his  tent,  started  a  fire  which  consumed  Bi- 
loxi  to  the  ground  and  terminated  its  history  as  the 
capital  of  Louisiana. 

A  council  of  all  the  colonial  executive  directors,  engi- 
neers, and  officers  was  held,  and  another  transference  of 
headquarters  was  decided  upon.  Bienville  again  made 
an  effort  in  favour  of  the  Mississippi  and  New  Orleans, 
again  set  forth  his  arguments,  which  were  backed  with 
no  less  authority  than  that  of  Diron  d'Artaguette,  the 
director-general  of  Louisiana  for  the  Company ;  and 
again  Hubert  made  test  of  strength,  and  again  proved 
his  majority  of  votes  in  the  council.  Hubert,  associat- 
ing New  Orleans  with  its  founder,  and  the  Mississippi 
with  New  Orleans,  had  become  as  violent  an  opponent 
of  both  as  Cadillac,  for  the  same  reasons,  had  been. 
And  Hubert's  friends  had  become  his  partisans  against 
what  they  also  considered  a  rival  platform  of  a  rival 
and  Canadian  government.  The  point  of  land  opposite 
Deer  Island,  called  thenceforth  New  Biloxi,  was  chosen 
for  the  seat  of  government,  and  orders  for  its  establish- 
ment carried  into  effect  at  once,  regardless,  as  before, 
of  expense  to  the  Company  and  loss  to  the  colonists. 

Bienville  met  the  persistent  denial,  in  the  face  of  ex- 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  255 

perience,  of  the  possibility  of  loaded  vessels  entering  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  by  the  proposition  to  send  the 
"  Dromadaire,"  one  of  the  Company's  vessels  then  in 
port,  through  it,  as  a  test.  One  of  the  directors,  Le 
( ]ac,  opposed  this  violently,  on  the  strength  of  a  certifi- 
cate of  the  captain  of  the  "  Dromadaire  "  that  his  ves- 
sel could  not  get  through  the  mouth  of  the  river.  Bien- 
ville  then  took  it  upon  himself  to  declare  that  he  would 
send  the  vessel  through  it  on  his  own  responsibility, 
Le  Gac  warning  him,  if  he  did  so,  that  he  would  be 
held  liable  for  any  consequent  damages.  The  "  Dro- 
madaire "  was  in  fact  carried  triumphantly  through  the 
passes  some  months  later. 

In  France,  the  Mississippi  scheme  had  become  the 
Mississippi  bubble  ;  collapse  had  succeeded  to  inflation. 
The  Louisiana  directors,  taxed  on  all  sides  for  contri- 
bution to  the  disaster  by  the  extravagance  of  their  ex- 
penditures, and  for  the  discreditable  disorders  and 
wretchedness  in  the  colony,  which  letters  and  rumours 
had  made  a  public  scandal  in  France,  vented  some  of 
their  bitterness  upon  their  colonial  vicegerent,  in  a 
letter  dated  2oth  October,  1 720,  —  a  letter  of  which  Bien- 
ville's  organ,  the  "  Journal  Historique,"  gives  a  version 
with  indignation.  The  Company  had  heard  with  grief 
that  a  complete  division  between  Bienville  and  the  di- 
rectors had  thrown  the  affairs  of  the  colony  into  a  fright- 
ful state  of  chaos ;  he  could  conceive  the  effect  that 
such  news,  spread  throughout  the  kingdom,  had  produced 
on  all  minds.  The  Company  had  been  blamed  for  ap- 
pointing rulers  so  negligent  of  the  Company's  interests, 
so  careful  of  their  own.  His  Royal  Highness  thought 
Bienville  the  author  of  all  the  disorders,  and  that  far 


256  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

from  keeping  the  promise  given  to  accord  him  the  grade 
of  brigadier  in  the  royal  army,  and  to  raise  him  to  com- 
mander in  the  order  of  St.  Louis,  had  taken  a  stand 
very  unfavourable  to  him  ;  and  notwithstanding  the  ex- 
planations of  the  directors  that  it  was  the  Company's 
agents  who  had  thwarted  the  governor  in  every  way, 
the  prince  had  replied  that  the  favours  of  kings  were  only 
given  for  effective  services,  and  that  to  deserve  them 
Bienville  must  show  himself  worthy  of  them.  The  di- 
rectors added  that  a  new  director-in-chief  of  the  Com- 
pany would  be  sent  to  Louisiana,  from  whom  —  most 
optimistically,  it  must  seem  —  they  hoped  a  better  future. 

As  the  honours  withheld  had  been  announced  to  him 
as  accorded  by  both  the  Company  and  the  Minister  of 
War,  Bienville,  says  the  "  Journal  Historique,"  was  ex- 
ceedingly mortified.  His  first  idea  was  to  write  to  his 
Royal  Highness  himself,  not  on  account  of  the  lost  tes- 
timonials, but  to  rehabilitate  his  reputation,  and  fix  the 
blame  of  the  state  of  affairs  in  Louisiana  on  the  right 
parties,  by  showing  that  his  authority  had  been  so  cur- 
tailed that  he  could  not  even  nominate  his  own  officers 
to  commission,  but  could  only  recommend  them  to  the 
Company's  agents. 

If  the  letter  was  written,  it  has  not  been  retained  in 
the  official  documents  ;  and  mayhap  the  only  answer  the 
reprimand  received  from  Bienville  was  a  more  vigorous 
pushing  forward  of  his  dominant  idea,  infused  by  the 
Company's  hope  that  the  new  director-general  would  in- 
deed inaugurate  a  better  future.  His  determination 
was  to  prove  beyond  peradventure  his  scheme,  —  not 
only  the  practicable  one,  but  the  only  practicable  one, 
in  the  eyes  of  all,  even  of  his  bitterest  opponents.  The 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE. 

Company,  by  sending  a  corps  of  capable  engineers  to 
Louisiana,  had  made  the  proof  of  the  navigability  of 
the  Mississippi  a  question  of  science,  not  of  personality 
or  partisanship,  as  it  had  been.  As  usual,  Bienville  was 
not  slow  in  turning  circumstances  to  his  profit.  The 
Sieur  le  Blond  de  la  Tour,  chief  of  the  engineers  for 
Louisiana,  being  detained  from  sailing  by  illness,  his 
second  in  command,  the  Sieur  Pauger,  preceded  him  to 
Biloxi  with  the  workmen.  One  infers  from  after  events 
that  during  the  interval  between  his  and  his  chiefs  ar- 
rival, Pauger  was  made  by  Bienville  an  advocate  of  the 
advantages  of  his  colonial  plan  as  against  Hubert's ; 
and  a  similar  inference  supposes  an  early  conversion  of 
De  la  Tour,  if  not  to  Hubert's  scientifically  untenable 
topographical  position,  to  his  prejudices.  The  results 
were  as  grievous  a  difference  between  the  two  engineers 
as  that  of  which  the  Company  complained  between  the 
commissary  and  the  governor,  but  the  gaining  of  his 
point  by  Bienville. 

After  the  completion  of  the  engineering  work  at  New 
Biloxi,  De  la  Tour,  ill  again,  was  forced  to  send  his  lieu- 
tenant in  his  place  to  perform  the  much-needed  work 
of  laying  out  New  Orleans  as  a  regular  city,  as  Pauger 
explains  it.  Hampered  and  retarded  as  usual  by  the 
agents  of  the  Company,  he  accomplished  the  task,  — 
cleared  the  neglected  space,  alligned  the  streets,  as- 
signed allotments,  and  made  a  plan  of  the  whole,  con- 
taining the  names  of  the  owners  to  the  allotments,  which 
he  forwarded  to  the  council,  receiving  their  approval. 

During  an  enforced  respite  in  this  work,  and  after  its 
completion,  he  made  two  trips  to  the  mouth  of  the  river, 
sounding  the  passes,  making  a  map  of  them,  and  v.rit- 


JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE 

ing  a  report  upon  them,  "thinking,"  as  he  wrote  to 
the  Company,  -  that  so  much  zeal  and  hard  work  would 
gratify  the  Company.  Instead,  he  had  received  a  repri- 
mand for  assuming  authority  which  did  not  belong  to 
him,  his  zeal  being  made  a  crime,  on  the  false  reports 
of  commissioners,  who,  for  all  their  reporting  upon  offi- 
cers, are  not  the  more  faithful  in  performance  of  their 
duty,  but  are  the  cause  of  all  the  discord  in  the  colony." 
There  is  a  more  satisfactory  reason  for  Pauger's  repri- 
mand, in  a  communication  from  the  governor  to  the 
minister,  dated  a  few  days  prior  to  Pauger's  letter. 
Bienville's  encloses  Pauger's  written  report  of  the  river, 
and  a  map,  "  sent  surreptitiously,"  he  says,  "  Pauger  not 
wishing  to  give  it  without  order  of  his  superior." 

The  documents  were  final  in  their  reach,  —  they  killed 
Biloxi,  and  assured  the  future  of  New  Orleans.  The 
soundings  guaranteed  a  free  entrance  through  the  passes 
for  third-class  vessels ;  the  insuperable  obstacle,  the  bar, 
was  found  to  be  a  shifting  deposit  of  mud,  removable 
under  a  full  current  of  the  river,  which  Pauger  proposed 
to  guard  against,  by  a  simple  plan,  enclosed,  of  stopping 
certain  outlets  and  jettying  certain  localities. 

Just  at  the  time,  June,  1721,  the  news  of  Law's  failure 
and  flight  reached  the  colony.  All  enterprise,  all  hope, 
was  for  the  moment  paralyzed,  and  an  epidemic  of  the 
panic  of  the  distant  capital  seemed  imminent.  But  ships, 
emigrants,  soldiers,  and  merchandise  continued  to  ar- 
rive ;  and  whatever  the  depths  to  which  the  paper  valua- 
tions of  her  resources  could  descend,  in  France  and  on 
the  spot,  through  the  flimsy  card  currency  imposed  upon 
the  community,  Louisiana  herself  held  steadily  solvent 
to  all  investors  of  honest  work  in  her  soil  ;  and  such  in- 


SIEUR  DE  BIENl'lLLK.  259 

vestors,  despite  all  others'  failures,   had  become    more 
and  more  numerous  and  confident. 

Bienville,  himself,  continued  the  pressing  upon  the 
Company  of  Pauger's  documents,  and  his  arguments  and 
his  objections  to  the  wasting  of  men,  work,  and  money 
on  Ship  Island  and  Biloxi.  He  writes  again,  assuring 
them  that  vessels  drawing  thirteen  feet  could  enter  the 
river  under  full  sail  without  touching  bottom,  and  that  it 
would  not  be  difficult  to  render  the  pass  practicable  for 
larger  vessels. 

"  I  should  already  have  had  work  done  upon  it  if  the  en- 
gineers whose  duty  it  particularly  is  were  of  the  same 
opinion ;  but  they  were  solely  occupied  with  Biloxi.  .  .  . 
Have  taken  upon  myself  to  send  through  the  river  two 
llutes,  one  of  three  hundred,  and  one  of  four  hundred  tons. 
They  entered  under  full  sail.  I  should  have  done  the  same 
with  others  that  have  lately  arrived,  if  such  precise  orders 
had  not  been  given  to  discharge  these  vessels  at  Biloxi." 

He  repeated  Du  Pratz'  description  of  the  costly  and 
tedious  methods  of  unloading  which  the  choice  of 
Biloxi  imposed  upon  the  Company. 


260  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

1721-1723. 

IN  the  summer  of  1721  the  new  director-general,  Du- 
vergier,  announced  by  the  Company,  arrived.  His  com- 
mission made  him  commandant  of  marine,  and  president 
of  the  Superior  Council,  with  a  salary  of  twenty  thou- 
sand livres  a  year.  Although  he  brought  to  Bienville  the 
augmentation  of  his  salary  to  an  equal  figure,  to  Cha- 
teauguay  and  Boisbrillant  the  cross  of  St.  Louis,  and  to 
the  younger  officers,  among  them  Bienville's  nephew, 
De  Noyan,  advanced  grades,  his  own  prerogatives  and 
authority  more  than  counterbalanced  the  effect  of  these 
gratifications.  Bienville  saw  himself  again  superseded 
at  the  council ;  Chateauguay  imagined  that  his  rank  of 
captain  and  services  entitled  him  to  the  command  of 
the  marine  ;  and  each  member  of  the  Canadian  staff 
saw  some  cause  of  resentment  in  the  manner  in  which 
his  rightful  authority,  as  he  considered  it,  was  adminis- 
tered by  another  foreigner,  a  stranger  in  the  colony,  an 
alien  to  all  the  past  hardships  and  vicissitudes. 

But  there  were  still  hardships  and  vicissitudes  enough 
in  the  colony,  at  least  around  Biloxi,  to  graduate  any 
new-comer  through  experience  to  merit  according  to 
the  curriculum  of  colonial  education.  There  was  not 
only  the  same  problem  to  feed  the  emigrants  and  ne- 
groes thnt  nrriv  -1.  r>nd  the  InriT  bodv  of  soldiers  and 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  26 1 

workman  gathered  around  headquarters,  but  there  were 
all  the  disorders  to  be  anticipated  from  the  indiscrim- 
inate sowings  of  convicts  and  vagrants  in  a  new,  thinly 
settled,  flimsily  protected  Government. 

Garrisons  in  distant  posts  deserted  in  squads  to  the 
English  when  they  did  not  join  the  savages  in  ambus- 
cading and  waylaying  their  late  commanders.  Crews 
mutinied,  capturing  their  vessels  and  sailing  off  to  the 
Caribbean  Islands.  Between  Ship  Island  and  the  mouth 
of  the  river  the  sloops  of  workmen  would  also  rid  them- 
selves of  overseers  and  guards,  and  make  a  landing, 
which  could  easily  enable  them  in  any  direction  to  at- 
tain liberty  and  license.  And  again,  the  Indians  along 
the  watercourses  were  raising  their  hands  against 
travellers. 

In  September,  the  colony  learned  that  the  Company 
of  the  Indies  had  been  put  in  liquidation.  Three  com- 
missioners landed,  charged  to  examine  into  the  accounts 
of  the  colony.  As  Hubert  had  not  kept  a  written  regis- 
ter of  his  accounts,  he  was  summoned  to  render  them 
orally  before  Bienville  and  the  rest  of  the  directors  capa- 
ble of  passing  upon  them, — which,  says  the  "Journal 
Historique,"  embarrassed  him  very  much.  He  recused 
Bienville  ;  but  when  the  other  directors  straightened  out 
his  affairs  for  him,  Bienville,  at  their  solicitation,  signed 
the  statement. 

Duvergier  enjoyed  but  a  short  period  of  his  authority, 
which  he  seems  to  have  exercised  mainly,  according  to 
his  subordinates,  in  arbitrary  making  and  unmaking  of 
officers  in  his  marine.  Bienville,  a  few  months  later,  was 
given  the  precedence  at  the  council  board  ;  but  with  a 
reduction  of  salary  to  twelve  thousand  livres  a  year,  — 


262  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

which,  however,  as  he  was  informed  by  the  Company, 
was  no  reduction  at  all,  as  it  was  to  be  paid  in  cur- 
rency. In  the  spring  of  1722  Duvergier  returned  to 
France  loaded  with  written  complaints  and  affidavits 
against  different  individuals,  promising  to  procure  the 
dismissal  of  Bienville,  Boisbrillant,  and  Chateauguay. 
and  the  cassation  of  several  minor  officers.  Hubert  fol- 
lowed him  to  France  some  months  afterwards,  voicing  the 
same  kind  intentions,  in  spite  of  a  seeming  reconcilia- 
tion which  Father  Charlevoix,  passing  through  the  colony, 
effected  between  him  and  Bienville.  The  directors  and 
engineers  were  still  spending  money  and  work  upon 
Biloxi,  with  their  fixed  idea  of  the  permanency  of  the 
position  as  headquarters  of  the  colony  ;  buildings  were 
being  erected  there,  a  hospital  was  being  put  upon  Deer 
Island,  the  plan  of  a  fort  made  and  adopted  for  Ship 
Island, — when  in  May,  1722,  two  new  commissioners 
from  the  Company  in  France  arrived,  Messieurs  de  Sau- 
noy  and  De  la  Chaise.  Assuming  control  of  the  ad- 
ministration and  the  regulation  of  the  long-standing 
confusion  in  the  accounts  between  Cro/.at  and  the  Com- 
pany of  the  Indies,  they  inaugurated  their  rule  by  ter- 
minating, in  Bienville's  favour,  his  long  contest  with  a 
past  decade  of  governors,  agents,  directors,  and  com- 
missaries. They  ordered  the  transportation  of  the 
seat  of  government  to  New  Orleans,  and,  as  Bienville 
also  had  urged,  the  establishment  of  a  post  on  the 
Arkansas,  by  which  communication  could  be  kept  open 
between  the  lower  colony  and  the  Illinois,  and  the  in- 
troduction of  live-stock  from  the  Spanish  possessions 
in  the  West  effected.  A  memorial,  or  manifesto,  in 
twelve  articles,  regulated  anew  the  tariff  for  slaves  and 


&EUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  26$ 

merchandise,  currency  and  budget  of  expenses,  divided 
Louisiana  into  five  civil  and  three  great  religious  dis- 
tricts, and  exhorted,  in  the  last  article,  a  more  regular 
attention  to  Christian  duties  than  had  been  observed 
in  the  past.  All  evidences  bespoke,  instead  of  an  aban- 
donment of  Louisiana  in  consequence  of  Law's  failure, 
a  reasonable  and  judicious  pushing  forward  of  the 
colony. 

De  la  Tour,  however,  was  made  lieutenant-general  of 
the  province,  which  (  "  Journal  Historique  ")  was  taken 
as  a  mortifying  rebuff  by  Bienville  and  Chateauguay. 
The  commissioners  brought  also  the  announcement  of 
the  re-establishment  to  health  of  the  king,  and  his  mar- 
riage with  the  Infanta  of  Spain,  and  also  the  marriage  of 
the  Prince  of  Asturias  with  Mademoiselle  de  Montpen- 
sier.  Public  rejoicings  were  ordered  for  the  occasion, 
and  the  sending  of  a  boat,  with  felicitations,  to  Havana 
and  Vera  Cruz,  —  a  very  appropriate  suggestion,  remarks 
the  "Journal  Historique,"  if  there  were  thought  in  it 
for  the  advantages  of  secret  commerce.  The  Te  Deum 
was  sung,  and  the  ceremony  of  blessing  the  flags  was 
performed.  Bienville  presented  De  la  Tour  to  the  troops 
as  lieutenant-general  of  the  colony,  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  all  the  vessels  in  port  fired  three  salutes  with 
cannon  and  musketry,  and  at  night  there  were  "  feux  de 
joie."  The  double  alliance  between  the  two  Crowns 
made  the  longer  retention  of  Pensacola  hopelessly  im- 
possible. It  was  formally  surrendered  to  its  original 
owners  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1723.  The  work 
of  transference  of  the  capital  to  New  Orleans  was  begun 
without  delay,  and  prosecuted  with  vigour.  On  the  loth 
of  June  (1722)  De  la  Tour  and  Pauger  both  sailed  as 


264  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

avant-coureurs,  to  take  the  pink  "  Aventurier  "  through 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  Word  was  brought  back 
that  she  had  passed  the  bar  on  the  ist  of  July.  Other 
boats  followed,  with  men,  building  materials,  ammuni- 
tion, and  provisions.  Under  De  la  Tour's  supervision, 
the  prospective  city  took  form  and  shape.  A  church 
and  houses  were  built,  levees  thrown  up,  ditches  dug, 
and  a  great  canal  was  constructed  in  the  rear  for  drain- 
age. A  cemetery  was  located,  and  a  quay  constructed, 
protected  with  palisades.  Bienville  arrived  and  took 
up  his  residence  there  in  August.  To  Pauger  was  as- 
signed a  post  at  the  Belize.  With  fifty  workmen  and 
a  dredge-boat,  his  admirable  sagacity  and  enterprise 
performed  marvels  in  an  incredibly  short  time,  working 
for  the  colony  and  New  Orleans  as  no  one  had  ever 
worked  for  it  but  Bienville.  Besides  keeping  a  pass 
open,  he  built,  out  of  the  drift  caught  from  the  river, 
lodgings,  store-houses,  boats,  a  smithy,  and  a  chapel  with 
a  belfry  that  could  serve  for  a  lighthouse ;  while  his 
garden  furnished  the  gladdest  of  welcomes  both  to  the 
eye  and  heart  of  the  weary  incoming  sea-traveller. 

New  Orleans,  however,  had  no  more  fortunate  begin- 
nings than  Mobile  or  Biloxi.  In  the  midst  of  the  build- 
ing and  transportation,  the  September  storm  came  on 
with  a  hitherto  unexperienced  violence.  For  five  days 
the  furious  south  wind,  raging  from  east  to  west,  swept 
land  and  sea.  The  ripened  crops  of  rice,  corn,  and 
beans  were  utterly  destroyed,  the  houses  and  buildings 
of  the  planters  blown  down.  In  New  Orleans  the 
church,  hospital,  and  most  of  the  new  edifices  were 
demolished,  and  three  vessels  wrecked  in  the  river. 
At  Biloxi,  the  magazine,  with  all  the  stores,  and  a  ship 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  26$ 

with  its  cargo  of  ammunition  and  food,  were  destroyed  ; 
almost  all  the  boats,  sloops,  and  pirogues  were  lost, 
and  two  ships  rendered  totally  unfit  for  service.  For 
a  week  the  greatest  apprehensions  were  suffered  on 
account  of  the  three  ships  anchored  at  Ship  Island 
and  the  "  Dromadaire,"  on  its  way  to  the  mouth  of  the 
river  with  the  pine  timber  for  a  storehouse  which  had 
cost  the  Company  over  a  hundred  thousand  livres ;  and 
the  first  comfort  in  the  desolation  came  from  the  news 
that  none  of  the  vessels  had  suffered.  The  "  Droma- 
daire "  had  ridden  through  the  storm  in  safety  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  the  other  vessels  at  their  harbourage 
at  Ship  Island.  All  of  them  arrived  in  course  of  time 
at  New  Orleans,  passing,  as  it  was  invariably  recorded  at 
the  time,  with  facility  and  safety  over  the  bar.  An- 
other crop  of  rice  came  up  from  the  seeds  scattered  by 
the  storm,  —  a  proof  of  the  fertility  of  the  land,  which 
came  also  as  a  great  consolation  to  the  colonists ;  but 
the  destruction  of  other  food  which  could  not  be  re- 
placed, brought  upon  them  the  affliction  of  another 
one  of  those  short,  sharp,  cruel  terms  of  famine  suffered 
in  the  old  days  of  government  neglect.  And  with  the 
proverbial  generosity  of  misfortune  in  New  Orleans, 
the  fevers  that  always  follow  a  midsummer  turning-up 
of  the  soil  there,  broke  out,  with  great  mortality.  The 
indomitable  Bienville  himself  fell  dangerously  ill,  and 
for  a  long  time  his  life  was  despaired  of,  —  an  illness 
which  the  "  Journal  Historique  "  attributes  to  grief  at 
so  many  coiitrc-temps  in  the  colony,  and  finding  him- 
self, after  t  \venty-three  years  of  service  upon  it,  with 
no  assured  rank  in  it.  Writing  to  the  minister,  Feb- 
ruary i,  1723,  he,  however,  makes  no  allusion  to  his 


266  JEAN  BAPT1STE   LE   MOYNE, 

fever  or  other  illness,  reporting  only  the  rendition 
of  Pensacola,  the  goodly  quantity  of  scalps  brought 
back  by  the  Choctaws  from  the  war-path  upon  which 
he  had  sent  them  against  the  Chickasaws,  the  complete 
abandonment  of  Biloxi,  where  only  one  military  com- 
pany remained,  and  his  work  of  establishing  a  battery 
and  garrison  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  to  protect  it 
"  from  insult." 

Within  six  months  the  newly  restored  Spaniards  at 
Pensacola  renewed  their  ancient  neighbourly  relations. 
The  commandant  wrote  to  Bienville,  asking  the  loan 
of  some  provisions  until  his  supplies,  which  were  daily 
expected,  arrived  from  Vera  Cruz,  offering  to  come 
to  New  Orleans  for  them.  Bienville  and  the  council, 
however,  with  more  wisdom  than  the  Spaniards  had 
shown  in  regard  to  Pensacola,  in  consenting  to  the 
loan,  waived  the  compliment  of  the  visit,  with  its  im- 
politic results  of  introducing  the  Spaniards  to  the  mouth 
of  the  river  and  the  state  of  the  city,  by  delivering 
the  provisions  asked  in  Mobile. 

The  disaffected  Natchez  tribes  had  gradually  recov- 
ered from  the  crushing  punishment  inflicted  upon  them, 
and  again,  influenced  either  by  the  English  or  by  the 
Chickasaws,  allies  of  the  English,  had  commenced  their 
depredations  and  ambushed  assaults  upon  the  French, 
—  attempts  which  had  grown  in  boldness  until  fears 
were  entertained  for  the  safety  of  the  post.  After  the 
usual  routine  of  pacificatory  measures,  —  summoning  the 
chiefs  to  him,  haranguing  them,  re-baiting  their  loyalty 
with  presents,  all  to  no  effect,  —  Bienville  saw  himself 
forced  to  an  attitude  more  intelligible  or  more  imposing 
to  the  savage  mind.  In  October,  1723,  he  landed 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  267 

suddenly  at  the  Natchez  with  a  small  army  of  seven 
hundred  men,  —  regulars,  volunteers,  and  Indians  (Tu- 
nicas, Choctaws,  and  Yazous).  To  give  the  rebellious 
villagers  no  time  to  rally  or  fortify,  he  began  his  march 
against  them  the  morning  after  arrival.  Stung  Serpent, 
always  on-  his  old  terms  with  the  French,  and  more 
than  ever  a  diplomatist,  hurried  to  Fort  Rosalie,  where 
the  commandant  slept,  and  commenced  his  negotia- 
tions before  he  had  time  to  join  the  march.  The  chief 
came  to  beg  pardon  for  his  nation,  confessing  that  the 
people  of  the  White  Apple,  Jenzenaque,  and  Gray 
Village  were  in  a  state  of  insurrection,  which  he  him- 
self had  not  been  able  to  overcome.  All  that  he  ap- 
parently obtained  from  Bienville  was  that  vengeance 
should  strike  only  the  three  guilty  villages,  and  that 
the  Great  Village  and  the  Corn  Village  should  be 
spared.  It  was  on  All  Saints'  Day  that  the  army,  with 
all  precautions  for  their  surprise,  filed  through  the  nar- 
row paths  of  the  forest  surrounding  the  doomed  White 
Apple  Village.  They  came  to  a  mud  cabin,  before 
which  were  three  squaws  pounding  corn.  The  women 
ran  in  and  closed  the  door  after  them.  Two  or  three 
warriors  inside  made  a  defence,  but  they  were  expedi- 
tiously  killed  and  scalped,  and  the  women  made  prisoners. 
With  the  exception  of  one  or  two  individual  exploits 
of  Canadians  and  Indian  scouts,  this  was  the  only 
warlike  achievement  of  the  French  in  the  campaign. 
The  White  Apple  Village  was  found  evacuated,  de- 
serted,—  nothing  but  empty  cabins.  It  was  burned. 
The  army  returned  to  St.  Catherine's  Concession, 
whence  they  had  set  out  in  the  morning.  A  few 
days  later,  the  commandant  led  his  army  against  the 


268  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

Gray  Village,  with  the  same  result.  Not  an  Indian 
was  to  be  seen.  The  abandoned  village  and  temple 
were  burned.  From  a  captured  squaw  it  was  learned 
that  the  Indians  were  awaiting  the  French  at  the  Ten- 
zenaque  village,  a  half  league  away.  "  On  this,"  re- 
lates, with  gusto,  Dumont,1  the  historian  of  the  oc- 
casion, "the  army  wheeled  about,  and  the  Tunica  chief 
took  the  lead,  marching  right  on  the  enemy.  Some 
time  after,  a  strong  cabin  was  discovered,  built  on  a 
height ;  here  it  was  believed  the  Indians  were  to  be 
found.  The  drums  beat  at  once,  the  fifes  struck  up, 
and  the  army,  forming  into  a  square  battalion,  ad- 
vanced on  the  cabin.  The  Tunica  chief,  who  was  at 
the  head,  first  reached  the  height.  He  approached 
the  cabin,  examined  it,  and  found  it  empty.  The 
Indians  had  abandoned  it  so  precipitately  that  they 
had  left  behind  some  guns,  balls,  and  horns  of  powder. 
The  Tunica  chief,  taking  a  turn  around  the  height, 
perceived  below  him  one  of  the  enemy's  chiefs  called 
the  '  Little  Sun,"  or  rather,  they  both  at  the  same 
time  saw  each  other,  aimed,  and  fired.  The  Tunica 
chief  stretched  his  enemy  dead  on  the  spot,  but  fell 
himself  dangerously  wounded." 

The  army  again  returned  to  St.  Catherine's,  and  Bien- 
ville  summoned  Slung  Serpent  to  him.  The  chief  pre- 
sented himself.  It  was  not  Bienville's  hour  of  triumph, 
as  on  the  little  island  of  the  Mississippi,  and  one 
wishes  for  a  glimpse  into  the  Serpent's  heart  during 
the  interview  which  resulted  in  the  elaborate  peace 
and  pardon  accorded  the  absent  rebels.  The  terms 
were  not  onerous.  —  the  head  of  Old  Hair,  the  chief  of 
1  Dumont 's  History  of  Louisiana;  French's  Hist.  Cull. 


SIEUK   DE  BIEWILLE.  269 

the  White  Apple  Village,  and  of  a  free  negro  who  had 
deserted  from  the  French  to  the  Indians.  The  Serpent 
requested  three  days,  at  the  end  of  which  he  brought 
the  bloody  ransom  ;  and  the  second  war  of  the  Natchez, 
as  it  was  called,  was  over. 


2/O  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 


DUVERGIER  was  arrested  on  arrival  in  France  for 
leaving  the  colony  without  permission  of  the  Company. 
In  disculpating  himself,  he  no  doubt  seized  the  desired 
opportunity  to  incriminate  others  and  make  good  his 
promises  oi  vengeance  to  his  enemies.  Hubert  had 
exposed  himself  to  no  such  disgrace,  but  his  advent 
in  his  native  country  was  nevertheless  not  unmarred 
with  humiliating  experiences.  He  wrote  to  the  minis- 
ter, i  iris,  April  n,  1723,  that  he  had  been  obliged  to 
keep  jhis  chamber  on  account  of  a  writ  of  arrest  against 
him  for.  a  letter  of  change  he  had  not  been  able  to 
acqu't.  'He  sent  his  memoir  on  Louisiana  by  his  wife. 
Diffeient  from  Cadillac's  celebrated  paper,  it  gave  full 
credit  to  Providence  for  his  excellent  creation  of  a 
country,  for  the  spoiling  of  which  Bienville  alone  stood 
responsible.  For  two  years  he,  the  writer,  had  suffered 
the  greatest  humiliations  and  risk  of  life  for  himself  and 
family  from  the  tyrannous  dealings  of  the  commandant. 
Colonists  had  been  put  in  irons  for  exposing  themselves 
to  make  the  complaints  that  he  was  doing,  etc.  A 
marginal  note  here  on  the  document,  "  Keep  in  the 
Secretariat,  without  showing  in  the  office,"  evidently 
tabled  Hubert  and  the  rest  of  his  arraignment.  An 
affidavit  of  a  few  months  later  travelled  farther.  It 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE. 

was  drawn  up  in  somewhat  imposing  form,  dated  New 
Orleans,  August  28,  1723,  signed  by  Ragtiet,  a  sub- 
commissioner,  countersigned  by  Father  Raphael  de 
Luxembourg,  Superior  of  the  Capuchins  and  Curate  of 
New  Orleans,  with  a  notarial  certificate  of  its  copy  from 
the  original,  dated  rytli  September,  1723.  Its  contents 
were  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  Sieur  Raguet,  wishing  to  discharge  his  con- 
science, and  obeying  Holy  Church,  our  Mother,  .  .  .  de- 
clares before  the  curate  of  this  city  of  New  Orleans  that 
he  had  full  knowledge  of  the  facts,  circumstances,  etc., 
contained  in  said  memoir  [whether  Hubert's  is  not  stated]. 
.  .  .  The  Sieur  Raguet  contents  himself  with  declaring, 
for  the  present,  .  .  .  that  he  has  knowledge  of  these  facts, 
and  that,  in  case  of  need,  and  when  so  required,  he  will 
make  a  detailed  and  circumstantial  deposition  as  much 
as  he  can,  and  that  even  it  would  be  appropriate,  in  onier 
to  know  the  truth  about  everything,  to  make  a  jut  icial 
investigation,  in  which  all  the  old  inhabitants  who  have 
been  vexed  and  ill-treated,  who  have  knowledge  of  what 
has  taken  place,  should  be  summoned  to  depose  whatilhey 
would  not  dare  otherwise,  and  that  it  all  should  be  .done 
secretly  before  the  commissioners  named  by  the  king  for 
the  purpose.  .  .  .  Also,  one  portion  of  the  facts  upon 
which  the  Sieur  de  Raguet  could  throw  light  .  .  .  about 
the  dissipation  that  had  been  made  in  the  revenues  and 
goods  of  the  king  at  the  time  M.  de  Bienville  was  both 
commissary  and  commandant,  which  will  be  more  clearly 
known  when  he,  the  affirmer,  shall  have  finished  the  work 
which  the  Council  of  the  Marine,  as  well  as  the  gentlemen 
of  the  Treasury,  have  engaged  him  to  do,  —  to  examine  and 
report  on  all  the  old  accounts  of  the  Marine  from  the  com- 
mencement of  the  colony  to  the  time  of  its  transference 
to  New  Orleans." 


2/2  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

This  was  not  to  be  side-tracked  in  the  secretariat,  or 
ignored  by  the  board  of  commissioners  in  France.  The 
response  was  prompt.  On  the  i6th  of  February,  1724, 
a  letter  was  directed  from  the  king,  directing  M.  de 
Bienville  to  return  to  France,  leaving  the  command 
of  the  colony  to  M.  de  la  Tour  until  the  arrival  of 
M.  de  Boisbriant  from  the  Illinois.  The  news  of  the 
death  of  De  la  Tour  having  meanwhile  reached  France, 
another  letter  was  written  to  Bienville.  ist  April,  1724, 
directing  him  to  remit  command  of  the  colony  to  Cha- 
teauguay  pending  the  arrival  of  Boisbrillant.  after  which 
Chateauguay  could  avail  himself  of  the  permission  given 
him  by  the  Company  to  return  to  France.  Should 
Chateauguay  himself  be  in  the  Illinois,  Bienville  was 
to  remain  in  command  and  not  embark  before  the 
arrival  of  Boisbrillant. 

With  nothing  but  the  bare  compilation  of  official 
records  before  one,  it  is  impossible  to  form  other  than 
vague  conjectures  as  to  the  effect  at  the  time  of  these 
orders  upon  Bienville,  his  friends,  and  the  colony.  The 
affairs  of  the  latter  since  its  foundation  had  never  been 
in  so  equable  and  promising  a  condition,  the  colony 
itself  never  so  vital  with  life  and  strength,  not  from 
distant  French  interfusion,  but  from  the  inherent  vitality 
and  strength,  which  men,  like  trees,  grow  from  the  soil 
in  which  they  are  planted.  Iberville's  grasp  of  conti- 
nent had  become  a  country  ;  Bienville's  establishment 
on  the  Mississippi,  its  city,  its  brain  and  nerve  centre. 
The  shadowy  hopes  of  twenty-five  years  ago  were  be- 
coming realities  ;  the  poignant  vicissitudes,  a  parent's 
memory,  from  which  the  children's  future  dawned,  a 
fair  and  promising  morning. 


STEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  2 73 

Bienville,  while  his  letters  of  recall  were  journeying 
to  him,  with  the  Superior  Council,  was  holding  regular 
sittings  in  New  Orleans,  purveying  to  the  ever-increasing 
legislative  needs  of  the  growing  community  under  their 
charge,  recognized  that  the  time  had  come  to  extend 
the  gegis  of  the  law  over  the  accumulating  population 
of  negroes  who  had  been,  and  were  being,  brought  into 
the  colony,  with  all  the  crude  barbarity  of  their  native 
wilds  upon  them,  by  the  competing  cupidity  of  alien 
companies.  A  legal  mode  was  required  for  freeing 
those  whom  gratitude  or  affection  thus  commended  (a 
by  no  means  inconsiderable  number,  as  statistics  of 
the  time  show),  and  for  defining  and  protecting  the 
human  rights  which  a  state  of  slavery  still  allowed 
the  others.  The  code  of  regulations,  celebrated  under 
the  name  of  the  Black  Code,1  compiled  by  the  jur- 
ists of  Louis  XIV.  for  the  island  of  St.  Domingo,  was 
adopted,  and.  with  a  few  curtailments  and  alterations, 
promulgated  in  Louisiana  in  March,  1724.  It  was  the 
last  public  ordinance  to  which  Bienville  attached  his 
name  before  returning  to  France. 

On  the  receipt  of  the  letters,  according  to  Dumont, 

1  "  Black  Code"  means  code  for  the  blacks.  The  adverbial 
substitute  is  sometimes  mistaken  for  an  adjective,  to  the  detriment 
of  the  code  itself,  its  compilers,  and  even  its  promulgator,  Bien- 
ville. Voltaire  mentions  it,  with  great  satisfaction,  as  a  "juris- 
prudence nouvelle  etablie  en  faveur  des  negres  de  nos  colonies 
qui  n'avaient  pas  encore  joui  des  droits  de  1'humanite."  A 
reading  of  its  ordinances,  and  a  comparison  of  them  with 
other  slave  regulations,  and  indeed  with  the  ordinances  against 
P.oman  Catholics  in  the  older  and  better-settled  English  colo- 
nies, would  perhaps  rectify  the  grammatical  misconception  al- 
luded to. 

18 


2/4  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

the  only  recounter  of  it,  Bienville  immediately  made 
his  preparations  for  departure  on  the  ship  which  had 
brought  his  letters  of  recall,  took  leave  of  his  friends, 
went  to  Mobile,  and  thence  to  Dauphin  Island,  to  await 
the  "  Bellona,"  which  was  to  convey  him  and  Cha- 
teauguay  to  France.  The  ship  appeared  in  the  road- 
stead before  the  once  busy  harbour ;  but  an  accident, 
the  upsetting  of  her  barge  on  its  way  to  land,  prevented 
embarkation,  which,  as  it  was  Holy  Saturday,  was  post- 
poned until  Easter  Monday.  At  dawn  of  that  day 
boats  were  sent  ashore  for  Bienville,  Chateauguay,  and 
their  luggage.  Hardly  had  they  reached  land  when 
signals  for  help  were  heard  from  the  "  Bellona,"  —  two 
cannons  fired  in  quick  succession,  followed,  after  an 
interval,  by  two  others.  The  weather  was  delightful, 
not  a  wave,  not  a  breath  of  wind  :  in  the  eyes  of  all, 
the  ship  slowly  sank  under  the  water,  the  crew  and 
passengers  jumping  overboard  with  whatever  they  could 
seize  for  buoys.  The  planks  had  started  in  her  keel. 

Bienville  returned  to  New  Orleans,  and  waited  some 
months  for  another  vessel,  taking  no  part,  however,  in 
the  government  of  Boisbriant. 

Arrived  in  France,  he  presented  his  justification  to 
the  minister,  —  the  memoir  of  the  services  that  had 
filled  his  life  since,  a  mere  stripling,  he  had  followed  his 
brother  Iberville  in  quest  of  the  country,  for  the  govern- 
ment of  which  he  was  now,  a  middle-aged  man,  called 
to  account. 

The  services  form  all  there  is  of  the  history  of  Louisi- 
ana up  to  this  date.  Somewhat  may  be  gathered  of 
the  history  of  Bienville  from  a  few  extracts.  The  paper 
begins :  "  It  is  thirty-four  years  since  the  Sieur  <le 


SIEUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  2?$ 

Bienville  has  the  honour  of  serving  the  king,  twenty- 
seven  of  which  as  lieutenant  of  the  king  and  com- 
mandant of  the  colony." 

After  the  rfeumt  of  his  policy  with  the  Indians,  — 

"  It  is  not  without  trouble  that  I  arrived  at  being  ab- 
solute master  of  so  many  nations  of  such  barbarous  tem- 
pers and  such  different  characters,  almost  each  one  of 
which  has  a  particular  language.  One  can  conjecture 
how  many  difficulties  I  encountered  and  what  risks  I  ran 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  colony  and  maintain  it  to 
the  present  time.  Necessity,  it  is  said,  renders  us  indus- 
trious ;  but  I  experienced  that  it  also  renders  us  intrepid 
in  danger,  and  makes  us  perform,  so  to  speak,  the  im- 
possible, in  the  different  conjunctures  in  which  one  finds 
one's  self  confined  in  an  unknown  world  with  such  a  small 
force.  I  first  applied  myself  to  putting  myself  in  a  po- 
sition to  govern  by  myself  without  the  aid  of  an  inter- 
preter. I  applied  myself  to  the  language  which  appeared 
to  me  to  be  the  dominant  one  among  the  savages,  and 
of  which  the  knowledge  would  facilitate  me  in  learning 
the  others  in  the  end.  I  was  fortunate  enough,  from 
the  first  years,  to  gain  their  confidence  and  their  friend- 
ship. I  studied,  to  know  well  their  customs,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  retain  them  in  peace  with  one  another ;  so 
that,  for  the  twenty-seven  years  during  which  I  had  the 
honour  of  commanding  in  the  province,  I  was  the  arbiter 
of  their  differences.  I  always  governed  these  nations, 
born  in  independence,  so  to  speak,  despotically,  and  I 
pushed  my  authority  to  the  deposing  of  chiefs." 

He  terminates  :  — 

"  The  Sieur  de  Bienville  dares  say  that  the  establish- 
ment of  the  colony  is  due  to  the  constancy  with  which 
he  has  attached  himself  to  it  for  twenty-seven  years,  with- 


2/6  JEAN   BAPTfSTE  LE   MOYNE, 

out  going  out  of  it  since  lie  made  the  discovery  of  it  with 
his  brother  Iberville.  This  attachment  made  him  dis- 
continue his  services  in  the  Marine,  where  his  family  was 
so  well  known.  .  .  ." 

In  New  Orleans,  the  Superior  Council,  through  the 
attorney-general,  summoned  the  Sieur  Raguet  to  sus- 
tain the  deposition  signed  with  his  name  and  given 
to  the  curate  Raphael. 

"The  Sieur  Raguet,"  says  the  requisition1  of  the  attor- 
ney-general, "  did  not  appear,  in  consequence  of  which 
M.  de  la  Chaise  condemned  him  to  pay  a  fine  of  ten 
livres,  according  to  the  ordinance,  and  resummoned  him. 
He  neither  appeared  in  answer  to  this  second  summons, 
simply  making  answer  to  the  clerk  that  he  '  did  not  re- 
member anything  any  longer,'  in  language  and  with  a 
levity  improper  and  unsuitable  to  justice,  showing  every- 
where a  contempt  of  and  disobedience  to  the  colony 
which  should  be  repressed.  As  in  these  revelations  the 
Sieur  Raguet  had  advanced  general  accusations  so  grave 
against  all  those  who  had  been  at  the  head  of  the  colony, 
he  should  either  prove  them,  and  not  affect  silence  and 
default  of  memory,  which  was  his  excuse,  or  pass  for  a 
calumniator,  who,  contrary  to  the  respect  due  his  supe- 
riors, falsely  accuses  them  of  the  most  horrible  malver- 
sation, with  the  sole  object  of  blackening  them,  and  insinu- 
ating the  most  disadvantageous  opinion  concerning  them. 
It  was  the  council's  duty  on  his  [the  attorney-general's] 
requisition,  to  condemn  the  Sieur  Raguet  to  such  repara- 

1  "  A  messieurs  clu  Conseil  Superieur  de  la  province  de  la 
Louisiane  .  .  .  arretes  en  la  chambre  du  conseil  le  28  aout, 
1725,"  signed  De  la  Chaise,  Perrault,  Fazende,  Perry.  The 
instructions  to  the  Superior  Council  in  regard  to  the  inves- 
tigation are  not  in  the  compilations  of  official  documents  either 
of  Margry  or  Magne. 


SIEUR   DE  BIENVILLE 

tion,  punishment,  fine  or  prison,  as  they  should  judge 
proper.  ...  As  the  Sieur  Raguet  only  excepts  M.  de 
la  Tour  from  the  most  unworthy  conduct,  and  as  it  fol- 
lows, he  attacks  the  honour,  probity,  fidelity,  and  justice  of 
Messrs,  de  Bienville,  Boisbriant,  Chateauguay,  Hubert  [?], 
...  in  other  words,  all  those  who  have  ever  acted  for 
the  Company,  it  is  necessary  that  he  give  the  explanation 
of  the  transactions  [enumerated];  ...  in  short,  prove  all 
that  he  advanced  in  his  deposition,  or  be  regarded  as  a 
perturber  of  public  repose  and  punished  as  such.  .  .  . 
The  council  was  requested  to  revoke  the  Sieur  Raguet's 
commission  as  substitute  to  the  attorney-general,  and 
to  ordain  that  he  should  be  judged  and  punished  as 
the  ordinances  prescribed  for  calumniators,  according  to 
the  quality  of  the  persons  he  has  tried  to  blacken,  and  the 
gravity  of  the  crimes  imputed  to  them." 

The  Sieur  Raguet's  commission  was  revoked,  as 
prayed  for  by  the  attorney-general. 

The  year  following,  rumours  being  rife  in  the  colony 
that  the  Indians  were  rejoicing  over  the  recall  of  their 
old  commandant,  and  that  his  reappearance  there  would 
be  the  signal  for  the  breaking  forth  of  hostilities  from 
them,  De  Noyan,  Bienville's  nephew,  made  a  request 
to  the  Superior  Council  that  the  Natchez,  Houmas, 
Tunicas,  and  other  tribes  might  give  voice  to  their 
sentiments  and  refute  so  grievous  a  calumny  against 
his  uncle.  The  Superior  Council  acceding,  these  na- 
tions made  their  declarations  intelligible  through  their 
interpreters,  that  they  all  regretted  Bienville. 

Bienville,  nevertheless,  was  destituted,  and  in  his 
ruin  involved  his  family.  Chateauguay  was  relieved  of 
his  rank  ;  the  two  De  Noyaus  were  broken  and  sent 
to  France.  Perier  was  named  governor.  Acting,  ac- 


2/8  JEAN   BAri'lSTE   LE   MOYNE, 

cording  to  his  instructions,  in  unison  with  De  la  Chaise, 
who  was  invested  as  president  of  the  council,  com- 
missioner, and  secret  investigator  of  the  Company,  with 
wellnigh  unrestricted  power,  the  disgrace  of  Bienville 
was  made  to  involve,  within  a  year,  the  disgrace  of 
nearly  every  acting  member  of  the  Government.  Who- 
ever opposed  the  authority  of  De  la  Chaise  and  the 
council  was  dismissed  from  office,  and  generally  sent 
out  of  the  country.  Boisbriant  was  recalled  to  France 
to  give  an  account  of  his  conduct.  Pauger,  Perry, 
Perrault,  as  members  of  the  council,  were  censured  ; 
the  two  latter  were  sent  to  France.  Fazende,  another 
member  of  the  council,  was  allowed  to  remain  in  the 
colony.  The  attorney-general  resigned  ;  his  office,  for 
the  time  being,  was  suppressed.  In  short,  for  the  first 
time  since  its  colonization,  Louisiana  was  to  own  in  its 
government  neither  member  nor  affiliator  of  the  family 
of  its  founders.  According  to  modern  political  parlance, 
a  new  slate,  and  a  French  one,  was  to  be  adopted  and 
enforced. 


SJEUX  DE  BIENVILLE.  2/9 


CHAPTER   XXV. 


AFTER  his  memoir  to  the  minister,  Bienville's  name 
drops  out  of  official  mention,  and  his  life  in  Paris  is 
a  blank  which  the  imagination  alone  can  fill.  In  the 
colony,  Perier  and  De  la  Chaise  carried  on  the  gov- 
ernment intrusted  to  them  in  the  manner  required  : 
a  government  of  thrifty  despotism  for  absentee  owners. 
They  complain  of  the  want  of  discipline  in  the  troops 
and  of  their  fondness  for  living  a  la  sauvage,  and  of 
the  general  lack  of  religion  and  morality,  which  seems 
to  have  grieved  all  French  officials  in  Louisiana  ;  but 
their  charge  appears  to  have  become  very  much  tamed 
under  their  hands.  The  old  Canadian  spirit  of  owner- 
ship of  the  country,  the  bluster,  the  brag,  the  indiffer- 
ence to  laws,  the  impudence  to  governors  sent  from 
France,  the  smuggling,  the  courcurs  tie  bois  adven- 
tures and  frolics,  the  projects  for  despoiling  the  Span- 
iard and  outwitting  the  Englishman,  —  there  is  no  trace 
of  these  in  the  reports  of  the  new  administration.  The 
prosperity  of  the  colony  under  this  spirit,  that  is,  the 
agricultural  development  of  it  by  patient  labour,  was, 
according  to  circumstantial  evidence,  fairly,  normally 
progressive  ;  the  security  of  it  was  entirely  fanciful. 

The  massacre  of  the  entire  white  male  population 
at  Natchez  in  the  later  part  of  1729  was  not  more 


280  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

of  a  surprise  to  the  victims  than  the  news  of  it  was 
to  the  Government  at  New  Orleans.  Surprise  must 
have  been  the  least  of  the  sentiments  experienced  by 
the  directors  of  the  Company  in  France  on  reading 
Perier's  despatch  containing  the  account  of  it.  Sys- 
tematic injustice  and  daily  petty  tyrannies  on  the  part 
of  the  French  had  consolidated  the  whole  Natchez  na- 
tion in  enmity  against  them.  A  culminating  outrage  — 
usurpation  of  their  territory  by  the  officer  in  command, 
Chepart  —  had  been  the  signal  of  revolt ;  the  gross 
carelessness  and  blind  self-confidence  of  the  same  offi- 
cer had  not  only  made  the  catastrophe  possible,  but  a 
bloody  success ;  and  the  news  of  a  confederacy  of 
Indians,  a  grand  plot  of  general  massacre,  came  to 
swell  the  horror  of  what  had  happened  by  the  fear 
of  it  as  imminent.  The  colony  trembled  from  limit 
to  limit.  New  Orleans  was  given  over  to  a  panic,  dur- 
ing which  a  peaceful  remnant  of  Chouachas,  living 
above  the  city  on  the  bank  of  the  river,  was  massacred. 
But  the  promptitude  of  action  that  could  alone  re-es- 
tablish the  French  in  the  eyes  of  their  savage  friends 
and  allies  was  irreparably  delayed. 

The  Choctaws  >were  the  first  in  the  field.  Seven 
hundred  of  them,  under  the  Canadian,  Le  Sueur,  fell 
upon  the  Natchez  while  they  were  still  in  the  midst 
of  their  feasting  and  rejoicing,  killing  sixty  of  their 
warriors,  and  rescuing  fifty-nine  women  and  children 
and  one  hundred  slaves  who  had  been  taken  prisoners. 
It  was  February  before  the  troops  from  New  Orleans, 
seven  hundred  men  under  Loubois,  arrived.  The 
Natche/,,  in  the  mean  time,  had  securely  fortified 
themselves  at  the  White  Apple  Village  in  two  strong 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  28 1 

houses,  Fort  Flour  and  well-named  by  the  French  Fort 
Valor.  Their  defence  was  splendid.  The  French 
opened  siege  with  all  the  science  of  Continental  war- 
fare, —  sappers,  miners,  cannon ;  but,  from  the  first, 
they  were  hopelessly  overmatched  in  every  soldierly 
qualification  by  their  savage  foes.  Their  elaborate 
explanations  of  their  discomfiture  are  but  a  series  of 
humiliated  apologies.  Perier  accuses  the  French  sol- 
diers of  cowardice,  —  says  they  were  intimidated.  He 
compliments,  however,  the  courage  of  the  colonists, 
particularly  of  the  Creoles.  Fifteen  negro  volunteers, 
he  wrote,  behaved  with  inconceivable  valour.  The 
honours  of  the  campaign,  however,  all  agreed,  rested 
with  the  Choctaws.  They,  at  least,  had  the  merit  of 
terminating  it.  Waiting  in  vain,  after  several  days'  can- 
nonading, for  the  French  to  make  a  promised  breach 
in  one  of  the  forts,  and  suffering  the  spectacle  of 
thirty  Frenchmen  running  from  their  trench  before  a 
sortie  of  the  Natchez,  the  Choctaws  opened  a  parley 
with  Fort  Flour.  Alabama  Mingo,  one  of  their  most 
famous  chiefs,  made  a  speech  to  the  obstinate  foes, 
in  which  he  convinced  them  that  although  the  French 
could  not  fight  them,  they  and  the  Choctaws  were 
sufficient  in  numbers,  and  possessed  patience  enough, 
to  blockade  them,  and  force  them  into  surrendering 
through  starvation.  The  Natchez  made  their  terms : 
they  to  surrender  to  the  Choctaws  the  remainder  of 
their  French  women,  children,  and  negro  prisoners ; 
the  French  to  evacuate  their  position,  and,  with  their 
guns,  retire  to  the  bank  of  the  river,  —  which  was  exe- 
cuted on  the  26th  of  February.  On  the  nights  of 
the  28th  and  2Qth  of  February,  the  Natchez  secretly 


282  JEAN  BAPT1STE   LE  MOYNE, 

made  their  escape  from  the  forts,  eluding  even  the 
pursuit  of  the  French.  With  their  allies,  the  Yazous, 
some  of  them  sought  refuge  with  the  Chickasaws.  The 
others,  crossing  the  river,  made  their  way  forty  miles 
westward  through  forest  and  swamp,  to,  no  doubt,  a 
traditional  refuge  and  resting-place  in  the  legendary 
migration  of  their  people  from  the  East,1  —  an  impos- 
ing mound-surrounded  tumulus  in  the  present  parish  of 
Catahoula,  just  above  the  juncture  of  Little  River  with 
the  Ouachita.  It  was  a  vantage-ground  for  attack  upon 
the  Tunicas,  and  ambushing  of  travellers  upon  the  Mis- 
sissippi, of  which  the  now  vindictive  warriors  availed 
themselves,  to  the  bloody  cost  of  the  colony.  Here 
they  remained  until  tidings  reached  them  (Jan.  3, 
1731)  of  the  great  armament  of  white  men  and  Indians, 
led  by  Perier,  close  upon  their  track.  They  withdrew 
to  a  far  stronger  military  position,  —  to  a  thirty  foot  high 
bluff  on  the  eastern  end  of  a  plateau  known  now  as 
Sicily  Island,2  situated  at  the  southwest  extremity  of 
a  small  lake  (Lake  Lovelace).  Here  they  intrenched 
themselves. 

According  to  his  own  statement,  it  took  Perier  and 
twenty  different  scouting-parties  nine  months  to  locate 

1  "  Mississippi  as  Province,  Territory,  and  State  "  (I.  F. 
H.  Claiborne,  Jackson,  Miss.,  1880),  —  an  invaluable  work  to 
the  student  of  the  history  of  the  "Gulf  States,"  from  which 
these  details  are  taken  almost  verbally. 

-  Claiborne,  in  locating  "the  last  stand  of  the  Natchez," 
quotes  from  papers  by  D.  W.  Tallafiero,  Ksq.,  and  Dr.  Kil- 
patrick,  of  Catahoola  parish,  and  T.  ().  S.  Doniphan,of  Natchez, 
whose  careful  personal  investigations  of  the  subject  fix  the 
correctness  of  Claiborne's  position,  and  the  incorrectness  of 
Monette's. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  283 

his  enemies  ;  to  arrive,  with  his  thousand  men,  through 
the,  to  them,  intricate  country,  up  the  bluff,  and  plant 
his  mortars  in  front  of  their  earthworks,  was  the  most 
heroic  part  of  his  campaign. 

The  Natchez,  as  before,  held  their  own,  and  de- 
fended themselves  gallantly  four  days,  until  they  brought 
about  a  parley,  for  which,  after  a  two  days'  rain  "  by 
bucketfuls,"  the  French  could  not  conceal  their  eager- 
ness. Perier  refused  to  treat  with  any  but  the  chiefs. 
Two  Suns  and  the  great  warrior  who  had  defended 
the  Flour  Fort  presented  themselves.  Perier  demanded 
the  surrender  of  the  negro  prisoners  still  in  their  pos- 
session. This  was  acceded  to.  He  then  offered  to 
spare  the  lives  of  all  the  Natchez,  men,  women,  and 
children,  who  delivered  themselves  up  to  him  the  next 
day.  The  ambassadors  then,  in  a  manner  that  Perier 
does  not  explain,  became  prisoners.  He  complains 
that  the  great  warrior  of  the  Flour  Fort  made  his  es- 
cape from  the  tent  where  he  was  guarded  by  twelve 
of  his  most  alert  men,  white  and  Indians.  The  next 
day,  four  hundred  and  fifty  women  and  children,  and 
forty-five  men,  left  the  Natchez  fortifications,  and  ranged 
themselves  inside  those  of  the  French ;  but  they  came 
in  such  small  groups  that  the  whole  day  was  consumed 
in  the  transaction.  Seventy  still  remained  in  their  fort, 
asking  a  delay  until  the  morrow.  It  was  raining  still 
in  torrents.  Between  the  water  under  foot  and  water 
overhead,  not  being  able  to  take  them,  Perier  says  he 
was  forced  to  consent.  At  nine  o'clock  at  night  the 
weather  cleared.  The  Natchez  forts  were  then  found 
deserted.  Again  the  great  fighting  bulk  of  the  nation, 
under  the  leadership  of  the  redoubtable  warrior  of  the 


284  JEAN  KAPTISTE   LE   MOYNE, 

Flour  Fort,  had  given  the  slip  to  their  captors.  The 
stronghold  was  destroyed  the  next  day,  and  two  pris- 
oners taken  were  scalped  and  burned.  Perier  returned 
to  New  Orleans  with  his  trophies  of  women  and  chil- 
dren, the  two  Suns,  and  forty  men,  all  of  whom  he 
sold  into  slavery  in  St.  Domingo. 

Upon  receipt  of  the  intelligence  of  the  Natchez 
disaster,  with  the  great  loss  of  property  involved,  and 
foreseeing  a  war,  in  addition  to  their  other  overwhelm- 
ing expenses  in'the  colony,  the  Company  of  the  Indies 
obtained  the  retrocession  of  their  charter  to  the  king, 
Jan.  23,  1731. 

The  Ministry  of  Marine  in  taking  possession  of  their 
old  burden  may  have  followed  individual  convictions,  or 
they  may  have  sought  perhaps  in  their  memory  for  the 
conditions  which  in  the  past  had  made  it  most  tolerable. 
Their  memory  may  have  been  aided  by  personal  solici- 
tation of  the  old  Canadian  clique,  assembled,  thanks 
to  the  Superior  Council  of  Louisiana,  in  the  effective 
ministerial  centre  of  Paris ;  a  visit  of  Diron  d'Arta- 
guette  to  France  about  the  time  may  have  furnished  the 
decisive  counsel  which  resulted  in  the  re-establishment 
of  Bienville  to  his  former  position  and  the  practical 
refutation  of  his  accusers,  and  the  rehabilitation  of  him- 
self and  policy  by  the  royal  government.  The  archives 
preserve  some  reclamations  which  had  been  made  from 
time  to  time,  —  a  memoir  by  a  M.  Doclun,  1726.  "  If  it 
is  desired  to  save  the  country,  which  is  in  the  greatest 
danger,  it  is  indispensably  necessary  to  send  back  the 
Sieurs  de  Bienville  and  Chateauguay  ;  "  it  stated  that  the 
Sieur  de  Bienville  had  been  displaced  by  a  cabal,  in  spite 
of  M.  Dodun,  who  could  not  get  them,  being  so  abject, 


SI  EUR   DE   BfENriLLE.  285 

to  say  what  they  had  reproached  him  with.  Knowing 
Bienville's  long  services  and  merit,  M.  Dodun  had  given 
his  testimony  of  them  before  M.  le  Due  (?),  who  had 
sent  it  to  M.  de  Maurepas.  M.  Dodun  had  also  made 
a  report  to  the  king. 

Out  of  the  fulness  of  an  ecclesiastical  wrangle,  1 728, 
radiate  a  few  beams  of  local  light  upon  the  subject. 
When  Louisiana  in  1722  was  divided  into  three  spiritual 
districts,  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  assigned  them,  —  Mobile 
to  the  Carmelites,  New  Orleans  to  the  Capuchins,  and 
the  Illinois  to  the  Jesuits.  The  Jesuits,  however,  had 
obtained  a  residence  in  New  Orleans  upon  the  promise 
to  exercise  no  spiritual  function  without  consent  of  the 
Capuchins.  Far  from  keeping  this  promise,  according 
to  the  Capuchins,  the  Rev.  Father  Beaubois,  S.  J., 
arrived  from  France  with  a  number  of  missionaries,  and 
commenced  a  systematic  infringement  of  it,  had  him- 
self made  director  of  the  Convent  of  the  Ursulines,  and 
otherwise  so  alarmed  the  Capuchins  by  his  arrogation  of 
dominion  that  they  prayed  the  council  for  an  ordinance 
against  him  and  the  Bishop  of  Canada  for  his  recall. 
Among  other  charges,  they  specify  "  that  Father  Beau- 
bois affected  a  close  intimacy  with  every  one  in  the 
colony  with  whom  the  Company  had  reason  to  be  dis- 
satisfied. ...  It  was  at  his  house  they  assembled, 
voluntarily  hearing  mass  only  in  his  chapel,  which  they 
qualified  as  the  chapel  of  honest  folk.  The  Jesuit,  little 
restrained  in  his  talk,  would  launch  even  in  public 
against  those  who  were  not  of  his  party,  and  would  par- 
ticipate in  raillery  not  very  decent  against  the  Capuchins 
and  their  Superior." 

The  Jesuit  answers  the  charges  seriatim,  ranging  the 


286  JEA+V  KAPT1STE  LE   flfOYNE, 

complaints  made  against  him  under  four  heads  ;  to  the 
second  of  which,  that  he  was  an  unquiet,  quarrelsome  man, 
he  makes  answer  "  That  it  had  been  written  to  France 
that  he  was  devoted  to  Bienville,  and  was  rousing  the  col- 
ony to  have  him  recalled.  He  acknowledged  that  he  was 
very  much  attached  to  M.  de  Bienville,  and  that  he  had 
even  wished  his  return  to  the  colony  as  long  as  he 
believed  the  return  possible.  .  .  .  Some  persons  in  the 
colony  had  never  been  able  to  pardon  him  that  he  had 
been  such  a  friend  of  M.  de  Bienville,  this  officer  having 
become  the  object  of  such  implacable  hatred  that  it  had 
become  extended  even  to  his  relations  and  friends." 
There  was  pique  because  Father  Beaubois  had  bought 
one  of  his  plantations.  In  November,  1731,  M.  de 
Beaucharnp,  commandant  at  Mobile,  giving  the  disgust- 
ing facts  of  the  condition  of  the  colony,  —  the  harassing 
guerilla  warfare  of  the  Natchez  up  and  down  the  river ; 
the  threatening  attitude  of  the  Chickasaws  ;  the  Alabamas 
on  the  point  of  declaring  war  against  the  Choctaws  ;  the 
insurrection  of  the  negroes ;  Perier's  barbarous  punish- 
ment of  them,  and  his  cruel  reprisals  against  the  savages, 
—  concludes  with  the  sensible  criticism  on  the  governor's 
past  course,  — 

"  One  fault  of  policy,  which  I  and  all  the  old  settlers  find 
in  M.  Perier,  is  that  he  has  given  a  perfect  knowledge  to 
the  Choctaws  of  the  forces  of  the  colony,  by  obliging 
them  to  come  to  New  Orleans  for  their  presents ;  so  that 
to-day  there  are  three  times  as  many  chiefs  in  New  Orleans 
than  when  M.  de  Bienville  went  away,  and  consequently 
three  times  as  many  presents  to  make.  In  addition,  these 
savages,  who,  being  woodsmen,  had  never  dared  risk  them- 
selves on  the  water,  have  become  boatmen,  and  so  qualified 
to  make  war  upon  us  in  any  part  of  the  colon)'.  That  is 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  287 

the  reason  for  which  M.  de  Bienville  never  suffered  the 
Choc-taws  to  come  for  their  presents  cither  at  Biloxi,  or 
New  Orleans,  to  keep  from  them  all  knowledge  of  his 
troops  and  supplies,  always  remitting  the  presents  to 
Mobile,  which  is  nearer  to  them.  The  evil  is  now  beyond 
remedy,  unless  M.  de  Bienville  could  return." 

Stopping  at  Cape  Francois  on  his  way  to  Louisiana, 
January,  1733,  Bienville  had  an  interview  with  the  en- 
slaved Natchez  chiefs.  They  assured  him,  he  wrote 
to  the  minister,  that  their  tribe  only  was  implicated  in 
the  revolt,  and  that  they  had  been  driven  to  it  by  hard 
treatment,  without  having  taken  counsel  of  the  other 
tribes.1  Perier,  6th  March,  1733,  announces  his  succes- 
sor's arrival  to  the  minister,  and  gives  the  account  of  it 
which  is  historical  only  in  the  serious  acceptance  of  it 
by  some  authorities  in  judging  Bienville's  character.2 
He  says  in  substance  :  As  soon  as  Bienville  had  set 
foot  on  land  he  remitted  the  government  to  him,  although 
the  day  before,  Bienville  had  paid  him  the  "  most  insulting 
compliment  in  the  world,"  by  the  Sieur  de  Macarty,  aide- 
major  of  New  Orleans,  for  which  he,  Perier,  demanded 
justice.  Macarty  came  to  him  drunk,  and  told  him  if  he 
did  ifot  dislodge  at  once,  according  to  the  order  given 
by  Bienville,  he  would  have  all  his  furniture  thrown  into 
the  street.  The  next  day  Perier,  who  attributed  the 
indignity  and  the  low  conduct  to  the  state  of  the  mes- 
senger, heard  it  excused  by  Bienville.  Perier  remarked 
to  the  latter  that  such  manners  were  not  very  proper 
towards  a  gallant  man,  no  matter  if  he  were  not  in  office, 

1   Margry'rf  compilation. 

-  Margry,  Introduction  to  sixth  volume, — and  all  those  who 
have  followed  his  opinions  without  seeking  their  base. 


288  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

and  that  it  was  a  pity  he  was  so  lacking  to  himself  in 
being  lacking  to  him  (Verier),  —  adding  that  it  was  not 
very  just  gratitude  for  the  very  different  conduct  shown 
by  Perier  on  his  arrival,  when  he  had  taken  Bienville  and 
family  under  his  protection,  although  they  were  held  in 
such  horror,  and  at  the  head  of  the  troops  had  forbidden 
evil  speaking  of  him,  under  penalty  of  punishment. 

One  can  but  remember  here  the  apparent  entire  des- 
titution of  Bienville  and  his  family  at  the  period  cited. 
The  account  proceeds  :  — 

"  Bienville,  no  doubt  repenting  of  this  proceeding,  sent 
and  asked  the  orders  of  Perier,  when  he  was  admitted  to 
the  council;  but  Perier  declared  to  Salmon  that  he  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  such  a  man.  When  Bienville  ar- 
rived, he  had  gone  to  meet  him  on  the  bank  of  the  river, 
having  all  the  honours  rendered  him  which  accompany 
this  kind  of  reception,  —  that  is,  firing  of  cannon,  and 
troops  under  arms.  The  cabal  of  the  Sieur  de  Bienville, 
who  had  laboured  to  make  him,  Perier,  pass  for  a  violent 
man,  and  not  master  of  his  movements,  would  be  very  glad 
if  they  could  tell  Perier  what  they  had  seen  and  heard  their 
chief  do.  Bienville,  in  spite  of  the  order  of  the  king,  which 
he  disregards  in  a  manner  to  convince  one  of  hi»  im- 
pertinence and  ignorance,  refused  to  be  received  at  the 
head  of  the  troops,  saying  that  it  was  sufficient  to  be  re- 
ceived in  the  council." 

Bienville  took  up  his  residence  again  in  his  old  hotel 
thus  summarily  vacated.  It  was  situated  in  the  space 
now  bounded  by  Chartres,  Decatnr,  Bienville,  and  Custom- 
House  Streets.  The  Ursuline  nuns  occupied  it  tempora- 
rily on  their  arrival  in  i  728.  while  they  were  awaiting 
the  construction  of  their  convent  ;  and  one  of  them,  the 


SI  EUR   DE   BIENl'ILLE.  289 

young  and  vivacious  Madeline  Hachard,  describes  it  in 
one  of  her  letters  to  her  father  as  "  The  finest  house  in 
the  town.  It  is  a  two-story  building,  with  an  attic,  .  .  . 
with  six  doors  in  the  first  story  for  egress  and  ingress. 
In  all  the  stories  there  are  large  windows,  but  with  no 
glass.  The  frames  are  closed  with  very  thin  linen,  ad- 
mitting of  as  much  light  as  glass."  The  same  facile  pen 
gives  also  a  sketch  of  Bienville's  city,  —  a  pleasanter  one 
than  those  usually  quoted  :  — 

"  Our  town  is  very  handsome,  well  constructed,  and  regu- 
larly built,  as  much  as  I  could  judge  on  the  day  of  our 
arrival;  for  ever  since  that  day  we  have  remained  cloistered 
in  our  dwelling.  .  .  .  The  streets  are  large  and  straight; 
.  .  .  the  houses  are  well  built,  with  upright  joists,  filled  with 
mortar  between  the  interstices,  and  the  exterior  white- 
washed with  slack  lime.  In  the  interior  they  are  wains- 
coted. .  .  .  The  colonists  are  very  proud  of  their  capital. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  there  is  a  song  currently  sung  here 
which  emphatically  declares  that  New  Orleans  is  as  beau- 
tiful as  Paris.  Beyond  that  it  is  impossible  to  go.  .  .  , 
The  women  here  are  extremely  ignorant  as  to  the  means  of 
securing  their  salvation,  but  they  are  very  expert  in  the  art 
of  displaying  their  beauty.  There  is  so  much  luxury  in 
this  town  that  there  is  no  distinction  among  the  classes  so 
far  as  dress  goes.  The  magnificence  of  display  is  equal 
in  all.  Most  of  them  reduce  themselves  and  their  family 
to  the  hard  lot  of  living  at  home  on  nothing  but  sagamity, 
and  flaunt  abroad  in  robes  of  velvet  and  damask,  orna- 
mented with  the  most  costly  ribbons.  The  women  here 
paint  and  rouge  to  hide  the  ravages  of  time,  and  wear  on 
their  faces,  as  embellishment,  small  black  patches." 

While  the  ex-governor  was  making  his  doleances  to 
the  minister,  the  governor,  according  to  his  and  Salmon's 
19 


290  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

correspondence  of  the  spring  and  summer  (1733),  was 
putting  his  hand  to  his  work.  He  could  arrive  at  no 
accurate  estimate  of  the  strength  of  the  Natchez,  but 
through  his  Indian  allies  he  established  the  fact  of  three 
divisions  of  them,  —  one  in  the  interior  of  their  territory, 
an  impracticable  country  above  their  old  villages ; 
another,  and  a  larger  one,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Ouachitas,  on  the  Yazoo  River ;  the  third  and  largest 
'  body  near  the  Chickasaws,  who  had  given  them  land  for 
a  new  village.  In  case  the  Chickasaws  could  not  be 
brought  to  terms,  and  their  guests,  the  Natchez,  extermi- 
nated, as  now  French  security  and  prestige  demanded, 
he  passed  in  review  his  more  distant  and  powerful 
Indian  allies,  whose  dispositions  he  had  been  able  to 
sound.  The  Illinois  were  uncertain,  as  were  also  the 
Wabash,  Arkansas,  and  Osages.  The  Natchitoches  had 
recently  made  an  attempt  to  revolt  against  the  French. 
The  Choctaws,  the  main  reliance  in  a  war  against  the 
Chickasaws,  offered  no  guarantee  of  loyalty,  except  the 
occasional  killing  and  plundering  of  English  traders  ; 
and  under  the  recent  short-sighted  administration,  as 
De  Beauchamp  had  written,  abuses  had  crept  in  which 
made  the  nations  more  difficult  than  ever  to  manipulate. 
The  chiefs  had  multiplied  themselves  to  one  hundred 
and  eleven,  each  one  of  which  had  separately  to  be 
treated  with  and  ballasted  with  presents ;  all  were  arro- 
gant and  insolent,  and  most  of  them  in  treaty  with  the 
English  of  Carolina.  In  short,  while  small  parties  of 
Choctaws  could  be  kept  on  the  war-path,  nothing  could 
be  hoped  from  them  as  a  nation  without  the  prelimi- 
nary long,  tiresome  processes  of  Indian  negotiations,  — 
processes  which,  in  fact,  did  consume  the  entire  year  of 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENV1LLF..  2QI 

1731.  As  for  the  soldiers,  without  barracks,  bedding, 
and  clothing,  no  steps  could  be  taken  towards  the  dis- 
ciplining of  them  for  service  until  the  government's 
neglect  of  them  had  been  repaired. 

In  the  ecclesiastical  matters  of  the  parish,  which  was 
still  in  a  flourishing  state  of  discord,  the  governor  was 
barely  installed  before  the  Capuchin  Superior,  the  curate 
of  the  city,  Father  Raphael  de  Luxembourg,  came 
(perhaps  as  a  test)  to  consult  him  and  Salmon  about  the 
order  received  from  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  to  interdict 
the  Jesuits  in  New  Orleans  and  its  neighbourhood.  Bien- 
ville  writes  to  the  minister  that  he  and  Salmon,  not 
wishing  to  enter  into  the  matter,  had  answered  that  the 
curate  should  know  better  than  they  what  to  do,  but 
that  it  was  a  delicate  step  for  religion.  Making  some 
defence  for  the  order  of  his  friend  Beaubois,  he  added 
that  the  Jesuits  had  gained  general  esteem  by  their  good 
conduct,  and  were  doing  much  in  the  service  of  religion  ; 
that  the  Capuchins  could  not  administer  to  the  whole 
parish,  which  was  extensive,  comprising  also  the  hospital 
and  nunnery.  Besides,  the  nuns  did  not  wish  to  submit 
to  the  order  of  the  Bishop  of  Canada  and  receive  a 
Capuchin  for  director.  This  condemnation  was  not 
meant  to  touch  Father  Raphael,  a  respectable  man  by 
his  learning  and  morals,  but  Father  Hyacinth,  "  whose 
conduct  was  so  licentious  that  he  was  despised  even  by 
the  libertines."  Bienville  had  learned,  however,  that 
Father  Raphael  had  forbidden  the  nuns  to  have  any 
communication  with  the  Jesuits,  who  in  two  days  were 
to  be  laid  under  general  interdict.  Beaubois  seemed  to 
be  the  sole  object  of  the  hatred  felt  by  the  Bishop  of 
Canada  against  the  whole  society  ;  nevertheless,  every 


2Q2  JRAX  BAPTISTE   LE  JfOYNE, 

one  agreed  that  he  gave  no  cause  for  it,  —  Salmon  in  par- 
ticular, since  the  Jesuits'  return,  had  not  remarked  any- 
thing reprehensible  in  their  morals,  which  were  regular 
and  edifying. 

The  following  autumn  the  governor  related  a  chafing 
of  the  spiritual  and  civil  authorities.  This  time  one  of 
the  captains  of  the  garrison  determined  to  marry  a  young 
girl,  and  not  being  able  to  obtain  the  permission  of 
Perier  or  Bienville,  the  couple  had  gone  to  Pensacola, 
where,  for  money,  the  Spanish  Franciscan  had  married 
them.  The  officer  being  ordered  up  to  the  Illinois,  and 
the  rumour  getting  abroad  that  he  intended  taking  his 
wife  with  him,  the  New  Orleans  priests  presented  a 
requisition  to  Bienville  to  prevent  the  lady  from  going 
with  her  husband,  or  to  oblige  the  officer  to  remove  the 
opposition  to  his  marriage.  The  officer  and  the  Superior 
of  the  Capuchins  were  summoned  before  the  council, 
and  the  latter  was  requested  to  make  known  the  founda- 
tion of  his  opposition  to  the  marriage,  which,  after 
hearing,  the  council  pronounced  of  no  effect.  But  as 
the  Capuchin  proclaimed  anew  that  the  marriage  was 
sacrilegious,  clandestine,  and  not  according  to  law,  for- 
bidding the  parties  to  live  together  under  pain  of  major 
excommunication,  enjoining  penances,  fasts,  etc.,  — 
Bienville,  not  to  leave  the  position  of  the  lady  uncer- 
tain, had  closed  his  eyes  to  her  departure  to  the  Illinois 
with  the  officer. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

1736. 

As  Bienville  wrote  of  himself  to  the  Minister  of 
Marine,  February  10,  1736,  his  letters  for  two  years 
seem  full  of  contradictions  about  the  measures  necessary 
to  finish  the  Natchez  war  and  frustrate  the  English  in- 
trigues with  the  Choctaws.  His  own  intrigues  with  the 
Chickasaws  met  with  as  careful  frustration  by  the  Eng- 
lish. After  two  years'  negotiations,  conducted  with  all 
the  skill  and  judgment  with  which  nature  and  experience 
had  furnished  him,  the  Chickasaws  still  refused  to  aban- 
don the  refugee  Natchez  to  him  for  punishment. 

In  the  correspondence  alluded  to,  there  is  an  evident 
reluctance  to  come  to  the  armed  issue  which  the  failure 
of  diplomacy  made  the  more  necessary  to  maintain  the 
French  supremacy  in  the  eyes  of  the  savages,  and  his 
careful  precautions  evince  an  apprehensive  conscious- 
ness in  his  mind  of  the  merit  and  strength  of  his  foes. 
There  is  an  apprehensive  suspiciousness  also,  not  only 
of  the  fighting  inferiority  of  his  allies,  the  Choctaws,  but 
of  their  loyalty.  Under  his  patient  and  persistent  incite- 
ments, they  had  kept  war-parties  in  the  field  against  the 
Chickasaws.  and  had  committed  themselves  by  isolated 
acts  of  brigandage  against  the  English  ;  but  the  nation 
was  divided  in  sentiment,  and  all  his  efforts  to  solidify 


294  JEAN  BATT1STE  LE  MOYNE, 

it  in  a  consistent  condition  of  warfare  had  met  with  dis- 
appointment. With  superhuman  patience  he  resumed 
over  and  over  again  his  manipulation  of  the  two  tricky 
Choctaw  chiefs,  Red  Shoe  and  Alabama  Mingo,  to  ar- 
rive at  the  but  partial  conviction  in  his  own  mind  of 
their  reliability  when  the  call  for  support  should  be  made 
upon  them.  His  temporizing  policy  with  the  Choctaws 
produced  a  difference  of  opinion  between  him  and 
D'Artaguette,  who  frankly  distrusted  them ;  the  differ- 
ence increased  to  an  estrangement,  which,  as  Bienville 
adhered  none  the  less  inflexibly  to  his  views,  transformed 
the  friend  into  a  criticising  opponent  and  unwilling 
subordinate. 

Bienville's  plan  of  campaign  was  one  in  which,  he 
wrote  to  the  minister,  he  thought  he  had  employed 
every  imaginable  means  for  success.  It  was  to  pene- 
trate by  the  Tombigbee  into  the  Chickasaw  country, 
where  he  was  to  be  joined  by  D'Artaguette  (brother  of 
Diron),  commandant  at  the  Illinois,  with  a  force  of 
about  three  hundred  good  men.  The  orders  were  sent 
to  D'Artaguette,  fixing  the  place  of  meeting,  —  Ecoresa 
Prudhomme  (Jones's  Bluff),  on  the  Tombigbee,  four  days' 
journey  from  the  Chickasaw  villages.  The  time  was 
placed  between  the  loth  and  i5th  of  March. 

Bienville  during  the  summer  took  up  his  position  at 
Mobile,  where,  in  a  grand  council,  he  exposed  his  plans 
to  the  Choctaw  chiefs,  and  secured  their  willing  and,  as 
he  judged,  reliable  co-operation.  Salmon,  in  New  Or- 
leans, undertook  to  forward  the  troops  and  provisions 
to  him.  But  the  means  of  transportation  to  be  furnished 
by  the  middle  of  October  were  not  ready  by  the  middle 
of  January.  Sending  a  detachment  in  advance  with 


SIEVR  DE  BIENVILLE.  295 

everything  necessary  to  make  an  establishment  and  con- 
struct accommodations  at  the  junction  of  the  Mobile  and 
Tombigbee  as  a  resting-place  for  the  army,  Bienville, 
despite  the  rigours  of  the  season,  crossed  the  Gulf  and 
hastened  to  New  Orleans,  where  he  personally  pushed 
forward  the  belated  preparations.  He  sent  a  courier  to 
D'Artaguette  to  retard  his  march  until  the  last  of  April. 
As  fast  as  pirogues  and  flat-boats  were  finished,  he 
embarked  them  for  Mobile,  with  what  force  could  be 
spared  from  the  garrisons  of  Natchez,  Natchitoches  and 
New  Orleans.  He  also  raised  a  company  of  volunteers 
among  the  young  men  and  voyageurs  in  the  city,  and 
another  among  the  unmarried  men  from  the  country. 
He  himself  returned  to  Mobile  on  the  4th  March,  leav- 
ing De  Noyan  to  bring  on  the  four  companies  still 
waiting  for  boats. 

The  royal  vessel,  by  which  the  mortars  for  the  expe- 
dition were  expected,  did  not  arrive  in  Mobile  until  the 
end  of  February ;  and  then  it  was  found  that  by  what 
Bienville  calls  some  deplorable  negligence,  the  cannon 
had  not  been  shipped.  The  expedition  had  to  go  with- 
out them.  Contrary  winds  retarded  De  Noyan  and  his 
soldiers  until  March  2 ad,  and  in  the  rough  weather  one 
of  the  large  boats  of  provision,  lost  half  her  cargo  of  rice. 
This  necessitated  another  delay  for  the  making  of  bread 
in  Mobile,  and  bakers  were  sent  up  to  the  establishment 
on  the  Tombigbee,  with  orders  to  turn  into  biscuit  all 
the  flour  on  hand  there.  Finally,  however,  every  misad- 
venture having  been,  as  far  as  humanly  possible,  reme- 
died, the  start  was  made  on  the  ist  of  April.  The 
armament  made  a  grand  and  notable  show  on  the  Mo- 
bile. -  -  five  hundred  soldiers,  without  counting  the  bril- 
liant staff  of  officers,  and  forty-five  blacks,  commanded 


296  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

by  free  negroes,  rowing  up  the  river  in  the  early  morn- 
ing sun,  in  thirty  pirogues,  followed  by  thirty  flat-boats. 

With  continued  heavy  rains  and  the  current  against 
them,  it  took  twenty-three  days  to  arrive  at  the  Torn- 
bigbee  juncture.  Here  it  was  found  that  the  comman- 
dant had  been  able  to  construct  but  one  working  fur- 
nace, the  fat  earth  of  the  region  not  hardening  in  fire. 
Bienville  put  his  men  to  work.  By  mixing  sand  and 
slime,  they  managed  to  construct  three  others  ;  but  all 
together  could  only  provide  a  baking  for  three  days  in 
advance. 

The  Choctaw  chiefs,  justifying  Bienville's  judgment 
of  them,  began  to  arrive  ;  Alabama  Mingo  among  the 
first,  Soulier  Rouge  among  the  last  comers.  A  day  was 
given  up  to  receiving  them.  Each  chief,  Bienville  says, 
began  his  harangue  with  protestations  of  fidelity,  and 
ended  with  demands  for  ammunition,  vermilion,  and 
prov''fens.  The  two  former  were  given,  but  Bienville 
reminded  them  of  his  warning  to  them  in  Mobile  to 
fetcl1  ;tieir  own  provisions.  They  related  that  some  of 
the  "''(rriors  had  been  turned  back,  after  they  had  set 
out,  by  a  rumour  that  when  the  two  French  armies  met, 
the  Choctaws  were  to  be  destroyed,  and  peace  made 
with  the  Chickasaws.  Bienville  immediately  sent  one 
of  his  most  trusted  young  Canadians  to  reassure  the 
suspicious  warriors  and  induce  them  to  join  the  expedi- 
tion. Writing  these  details  at  the  camp  on  the  Tom- 
bigbee,  May  2,  1 736,  Bienville  mentions,  — -  with  little 
suspicion  of  the  correctness  of  his  prescience,  — 

"  Several  war-parties,  who  have  brought  scalps  to  me,  told 
me  of  having  seen  great  roads,  which  make  them  believe 
that  help  has  been  sent  to  the  Chickasaws  by  the  English. 


SIEUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  297 

I  think  rather  that  it  is  M.  d'Artaguette,  who,  hurried  by 
the  savages,  has  arrived  before  me,  and  did  not  wish  to 
return  without  striking  a  blow." 

On  the  ist  of  May,  all  the  chiefs  having  arrived,  a 
grand  consultation  was  held ;  it  was  agreed  that  the 
Choctaw  forces  should  meet  the  French  in  fourteen  days 
at  the  little  creek  which  separated  the  Chickasaw  and 
Choctaw  territories,  whence  the  united  array  would 
march  against  the  enemy.  The  chiefs  then  took  their 
departure,  and  the  French  re-embarked  for  the  last 
stage  of  their  journey  by  boat.  By  the  226.  of  the 
month,  all  arrived  at  the  landing-place,  —  some  nine 
leagues  above  the  Chickasaw  villages.  Bienville  re- 
marked that  the  Choctaws  had  not  rallied  in  as  great 
numbers  as  promised ;  all  together  not  numbering  over 
six  hundred  men.  A  small  fortification  (Fort  Ottibia) 
was  thrown  up  to  protect  the  boats  and  provisions,  and 
a  garrison  of  twenty  men,  with  the  boatmen,  ^re- 
keepers,  and  sick,  were  left  in  charge.  After  a  c  ju- 
tion  of  twelve  days'  provisions  and  ammuniti  "he 
army  was  put  in  motion  on  the  24th,  marching  i  ian 
file,  in  two  columns,  through  the  woods,  with  In- 

dians on  either  flank.  The  bad  weather  still  pursued 
them  ;  during  the  first  camp  a  terrible  storm,  which  re- 
turned several  times  during  the  night,  threatened  ruin 
to  both  ammunition  and  provisions.  The  next  day 
there  were  three  deep  ravines  to  pass,  filled  with  water 
waist  high,  the  sides  closed  with  impenetrable  cane- 
brakes  ;  but  after  this,  they  came  to  a  most  beautiful 
prairie,  and  camped  about  two  leagues  from  the  Chicka- 
saw villages. 

Neither   Choctaws   nor  French  could  conceal  their 


298  JEAN  BATTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

want  of  confidence  in  one  another.  Soulier  Rouge 
wished  to  reconnoitre  with  some  of  his  men,  Bienville, 
fearing  an  evil  turn  from  him,  had  him  accompanied  by 
some  Canadians.  As  the  party  did  not  return  that 
night,  and  several  shots  being  heard,  the  report  again 
spread  among  the  Choctaws  that  the  whole  expedition 
was  a  stratagem  to  deliver  them  up  to  the  Chickasaws. 
Foolish  as  the  report  was,  the  Choctaws  were  on  the 
point  of  abandoning  the  French  when  the  reconnoiterers 
appeared. 

Tranquillity  being  restored  and  the  march  resumed, 
the  great  chief  of  the  Choctaws  at  the  first  halt  asked 
Bienville  which  village  he  intended  attacking  first. 
Bienville  told  him  the  Natchez,  as  they  were  the  authors 
of  the  war.  The  great  chief  then  represented  that  the 
first  village,  Tchiouakafalay,  was  the  nearest  of  the  Chick- 
asaw  villages  to  the  Choctaws,  and  did  them  most  harm, 
and  that  he  would  like  to  attack  that  first,  particularly 
as  it  was  filled  with  provisions  which  the  Choctaws 
needed,  and  without  which  they  could  not  follow  the 
French  any  more.  Hardly  doubting,  Bienville  relates, 
but  that  the  Choctaws  would  return  home  after  taking 
this  first  village,  their  habit  being  to  fly  after  they  had 
struck  the  first  blow,  he  persuaded  them  to  attack  the 
Natchez  village  first,  promising  to  return  and  take  the 
Schioukafalay  afterwards.  They  appeared  satisfied,  and 
their  guides,  leading  the  army  through  the  woods,  as  if 
to  conduct  it  to  the  point  agreed  upon,  came  to  a  small 
prairie  about  a  league  in  extent,  in  the  middle  of  which 
were  three  villages  placed  triangularly  on  the  crest  of  a 
ridge,  at  the  foot  of  which  flowed  a  brook  almost  dry. 
This  little  prairie  was  only  a  league  distant  from  the 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  299 

large  prairie  where  were  most  of  the  Chickasaw  villages. 
A  small  forest  separated  them.  The  Choctaws  main- 
taining that  no  water  could  be  found  farther  on,  Bien- 
ville  denied  his  army  the  length  of  the  woods  that 
skirted  the  prairie  and  gained  a  little  eminence,  where  a 
halt  was  made  for  dinner.  It  was  a  little  past  midday, 
and  the  men  as  they  marched  stooped  to  pluck  the  wild 
strawberries  that  covered  the  earth,  thick  and  luscious 
under  their  feet. 

The  Choctaws,  who  had  gained  their  point  by  a  ruse, 
hastened  to  complete  the  trick  by  precipitating  an  action. 
While  the  army  was  defiling  through  the  woods,  a  party 
of  three,  with  war-cries  and  yells,  began  shooting  and 
skirmishing  around  the  first  village,  and  succeeded  in 
drawing  its  defensive  fires  upon  the  French.  The  French 
officers  then  joined  their  demands  to  the  Choctaws  that 
this  first  village,  which  they  did  not  think  was  good  for 
much  resistance,  should  be  at  once  taken.  Pressed  on 
all  sides,  Bienville  explains,  not  to  leave  these  strong- 
holds behind  the  army,  and  not  being  able  to  refuse 
without  rebuffing  the  Choctaws,  he  gave  his  consent  to 
the  attack,  after  making  the  chiefs  promise  to  accom- 
pany him  to  the  Natchez  after  the  taking  of  the  villages, 
—  which  promise  they  gave,  with  many  protestations  and 
reiterations.  A  company  of  grenadiers,  a  detachment 
of  fifteen  men  from  each  of  the  eight  French  companies, 
sixty  Swiss,  and  forty-five  volunteers  under  J)e  Noyan, 
were  commanded  to  be  in  readiness  by  two  o'clock  for 
the  attack. 

From  the  height  where  the  French  were,  four  or  five 
F.nglishmen  could  be  discerned,  bustling  around  among 
the  excited  Chickasaws,  and  over  one  village  floated  the 


3oo          JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYXE, 

English  flag.  The  French  battalion  moved  out  of  the 
woods,  crossed  the  brook,  and  began  to  ascend  the 
ridge.  A  murderous  fire  poured  upon  them  from  three 
directions.  One  of  the  negro  bearers,  carrying  mantelets 
in  front,  was  killed.  The  rest  threw  down  their  burdens 
and  fled.  The  column  of  grenadiers,  first  attaining  the 
summit  and  the  entrance  of  the  village,  met  the  full 
force  of  the  hidden  batteries  about  them.  Two  or  three 
fortified  cabins  were  taken  and  burned  ;  but  when  it  came 
to  crossing  the  open  space  between  them  and  the  next 
cabins,  under  the  same  fire,  the  Chevalier  de  Noyan, 
looking  about  him,  saw  only  a  few  officers,  a  remnant  of 
grenadiers,  and  about  a  dozen  volunteers.  The  soldiers, 
hopeless  at  fighting  an  enemy  whom  they  could  not 
draw  out,  sought  shelter  from  the  range  of  their  loop- 
holes. Crowding  behind  the  captured  cabins,  they  re- 
fused to  be  driven  out  by  their  sergeants.  Almost  all 
the  officers  were  killed  or  wounded.  The  Chevalier  de 
Noyan  and  four  officers  fell  wounded  at  the  same 
moment.  In  vain  De  Noyan  sent  his  aide  to  rally  the 
soldiers  ;  the  killing  of  the  aide  among  them,  only  added 
to  their  panic.  He  finally  got  a  message  to  Bienville, 
that  unless  assistance  were  sent,  or  retreat  sounded,  not 
an  officer  would  be  left  alive. 

Upon  this  report,  and  viewing  from  the  point  where 
he  was  the  combat,  and  the  conduct  of  the  French  and 
Swiss  soldiers,  and  with  a.  sudden  alarm  in  the  camp 
that  a  reinforcement  from  the  Chickasaws  of  the  great 
prairie  beyond,  were  approaching,  Bienville  sent  a  com- 
pany of  eighty  men  to  protect  the  retreat  and  fetch 
off  the  wounded,  which  they  did  not  accomplish  with- 
out serious  loss.  The  officers,  massed  together,  were 


SIEUK   DE  BfENVILLE.  301 

found  still  fighting  and  holding  their  own.  The  Choc- 
taws,  who  had  been  keeping  themselves  under  cover 
under  the  side  of  the  hill,  then,  says  Bienville,  raised 
themselves  up,  and  made  several  discharges  of  their 
firearms  ;  but  they  also  lost  twenty-two  men  killed  and 
wounded,  which  discouraged  and  disgusted  them  not  a 
little. 

The  night  was  passed  in  felling  trees,  and  making 
hasty  defences  to  assure  the  camp  against  surprise.  It 
seems  hardly  doubtful  that  if  the  Chickasaws  had  fol- 
lowed up  the  prestige  of  their  defence  with  an  assault, 
they  would  have  made  a  bloody  end  of  the  whole  French 
army.  But  the  savages,  either  from  their  own  or  the 
English  counsels,  stood  secure,  silent,  invisible,  alert,  in 
their  strongholds,  leaving  the  French  to  take  what  initia- 
tive they  chose,  after  their  lesson.  As  Bienville  experi- 
enced cruelly,  there  was  no  choice.  The  great  number  of 
his  wounded  ;  the  scarcity  of  provisions,  he  having  been 
forced,  after  all,  to  feed  the  Choctaws,  to  hold  them  ;  the 
fear  that  the  Choctaws  might  abandon  him  at  any  mo- 
ment, —  made  retreat  a  necessity,  and  a  quick  one  an 
urgent  necessity.  For  in  addition  to  other  apprehen- 
sions, the  falling  of  the  Tombigbee  came  to  threaten  the 
cutting  off  of  his  water  transportation.  A  retreat  by 
land,  harassed  at  every  covert  by  Chickasaws  and 
Natchez,  would  convert  the  present  repulse  into  an 
irremediable  disaster. 

As  for  resuming  an  attack  upon  the  Chickasaw  villages 
without  cannon,  he  dismissed  any  such  alternative  by 
simply  sending  a  plan  of  the  villages  to  the  minister  and 
describing  the  system  of  fortifications  used  by  these 
savages : — 


3O2  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

"  After  having  surrounded  tlieir  cabins  with  several 
rows  of  great  pieux  (filled  with  earth),  they  hollow  out  the 
earth  inside,  until  they  can  let  themselves  down  in  it, 
shoulder-deep,  and  shoot  through  loopholes  almost  level 
with  the  ground  ;  but  they  obtain  still  more  advantage  from 
the  natural  situation  of  their  cabins,  which  are  separated 
one  from  the  other,  so  that  their  fires  cross,  than  from  all 
the  arts  of  fortifying  them  that  the  English  can  suggest. 
The  coverings  of  the  cabins  are  a  thatching  of  wood  and 
mud,  proof  against  fire-arrows  and  grenades  ;  nothing  but 
bombs  could  damage  them." 

Litters  were  made  for  the  wounded  ;  and  at  the  hour 
at  which  they  arrived  the  day  before,  and  in  the  same 
manner,  in  two  columns,  the  army  withdrew.  The  tired 
soldiers,  having  had  no  rest  during  the  night,  loaded 
with  their  baggage  and  carrying  their  wounded,  marched 
slowly,  — which  completed  the  disgust  of  the  Choctaws. 
Soulier  Rouge  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost  to  get  his 
people  to  abandon  the  French  then  and  there  ;  but  the 
Great  Chief  and  Bienville  were  able  to  frustrate  him.  To 
hasten  the  march,  Bienville  proposed  that  they  should 
assist  in  carrying  the  wounded ;  and  after  many  difficul- 
ties, obtained  that  each  village  should  take  charge  of  one 
man.  The  Ottibia  and  the  boats  were  reached  in  two 
days  ;  the  water  was  so  low  that  in  many  places  a  pas- 
sage had  to  be  cut  through  the  bottom  for  the  boats. 
On  the  2d  of  June  all  arrived  at  the  Tombigbee.  The 
wounded,  with  the  surgeons,  were  hurried  on  to  Mobile. 
Bienville  followed  after.  From  the  Tohomes  he  received 
the  first  intelligence  of  the  full  extent  of  his  disaster,  which 
Diron  d'Artaguette,  mad  with  grief  and  resentment  over 
the  useless  sacrifice  of  his  brother,  more  than  confirmed. 


SIEUX  DE  BIENVILLE.  303 

It  was  indeed  a.  useless,  a  most  deplorable,  sacrifice, 
and  a  misfortune  from  which  Bienville  never  recovered. 
His  surmise  about  D'Artaguette  was  only  too  true.  The 
young  commandant,  as  a  letter  awaiting  Bienville  in 
Mobile  announced,  following  his  first  instructions,  had 
set  out  from  the  Illinois  with  his  force  of  one  hundred 
and  forty  white  men  and  two  hundred  and  sixty-six 
Indians,  —  Iroquois,  Arkansas,  Miamis,  and  Illinois,  —  to 
reach  the  rendezvous  early  in  March,  marching  slowly, 
that  some  delayed  reinforcements  from  the  Michigamias 
and  Arkansas,  under  the  Sieur  de  Montcherval,  might 
overtake  him.  Arrived  at  the  Chickasaw  Bluffs,  his  scouts 
could  discover  no  signs  or  traces  of  Bienville's  army. 
The  next  day  a  courier  from  the  Illinois  appeared  with 
Bienville's  letter  and  change  of  plan.  He  immediately 
called  a  council  of  war  of  his  officers  and  the  Indian 
chiefs.  The  latter  advised  striking  a  blow  immediately, 
as  the  Indians,  not  having  provisions  enough  to  remain 
long  in  campaign,  would  be  forced  to  quit ;  adding 
that  their  scouts  reported  in  the  large  prairie  a  small 
village  of  thirty  cabins,  separated  from  all  the  rest, 
which  could  be  easily  taken ;  they  would  undoubt- 
edly find  it  full  of  provisions,  which  would  enable  them 
to  wait  for  Bienville  under  the  protection  of  the  forti- 
fications they  could  throw  around  the  place.  Almost 
all  the  officers  seconding  this  advice,  the  attack  upon 
the  village  was  decided.  Their  march  to  the  prairie  was 
pushed  forward  with  rapidity  and,  as  they  supposed, 
without  being  discovered.  Arrived  within  a  quarter  of  a 
league  of  the  great  prairie,  —  it  was  Palm  Sunday,  —  the 
baggage  was  left  under  a  guard  of  thirty  men,  and  the  rest 
of  the  army  confidently  took  the  road  to  the  village.  It 


304  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

was  the  road  to  certain  death  to  all  but  two  of  them. 
Hardly  had  the  attack  upon  the  village  begun,  when 
D'Artaguette  saw  a  troop  of  from  four  to  five  hundred 
savages  issue  from  behind  a  neighboring  hill,  and  bear 
down  upon  him  with  such  rapidity  and  force  that  his 
Indians,  the  Miamis  and  Illinois,  the  greater  part  of  his 
army,  took  to  flight.  He  turned  to  gain  the  road  to  his 
baggage,  to  save  or  at  least  blow  up  his  powder,  fighting 
desperately,  step  by  step,  he,  his  officers,  men,  and  the 
sixty-six  Iroquois  and  Arkansas.  —  all  his  Indians  who 
stood  by  him.  Nineteen  were  taken  alive,  among  them 
D'Artaguette,  —  desperately  wounded  in  three  places,  — 
two  officers,  and  Father  Senac,  a  Jesuit  priest. 

Two  days'  journey  from  the  prairie,  the  advancing 
reinforcement,  under  Montcherval,  met  the  flying  debris 
of  the  baggage  guard.  With  them  he  turned  back  to 
the  Illinois,  sending  a  courier  to  acquaint  Bienville  with 
the  catastrophe.  The  courier,  as  has  been  seen,  never 
reached  him.  Provided  abundantly  with  ammunition, 
warned  through  the  papers  found  on  D'Artaguette  (read 
to  them  by  the  English  traders)  of  Bienville's  plans,  the 
Chickasaws  had  abundant  time,  with  their  English  friends, 
to  take  their  measures  of  defence  ;  and.  as  has  been 
seen,  they  took  them  well.  As  Bienville  said,  it  was  not 
astonishing  that  he  found  the  preparation  that  destroyed 
his  combinations  ;  for  he  had  counted  upon  having  to  do 
with  savages,  brave  in  truth,  but  incapable  of  fortifying 
themselves  as  they  had  done  to  the  degree  that  it  was 
impossible  to  fight  them  without  artillery. 

An  Avoyelles  woman  slave  who  escaped  from  the 
Chickasaws  to  the  Alabamas  some  time  afterwards, 
related  the  unfortunate  fate  of  the  prisoners.  The  after- 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  305 

noon  of  the  engagement  two  were  put  aside,  to  exchange 
for  a  Chickasaw  warrior  in  the  hands  of  the  French. 
The  remaining  seventeen  were  divided  into  two  lots,  and 
burned  in  two  huge  fires  prepared  by  the  Chickasaw 
women.  All  died  heroically,  —  one  Frenchman,  so  it  has 
come  down  to  us,  singing  his  death-song  to  the  last,  like 
an  Indian  brave. 

Bienville  effected  the  exchange  of  the  two  survivors. 
Save  these,  he  could  not  obtain  further  details  of  the 
affair,  which,  as  above,  he  related  to  the  minister.  All 
agreed,  he  said,  that  but  for  the  courage  of  the  Iroquois 
and  Arkansas,  not  a  Frenchman  would  have  survived  the 
expedition. 


20 


306  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER    XXVII. 

I737~I74o- 

THERE  was  no  interest  so  important  now  in  the 
colony  as  restoring  the  lost  prestige  of  the  French, 
and  diminishing  the  effects  of  the  triumph  of  the 
Chickasaws  in  the  country.  Bienville  had  no  sooner 
got  back  to  New  Orleans  than  he  commenced  his  pre- 
parations for  another  campaign,  —  preparations  based 
on  his  recent  new  knowledge  of  the  Chickasaws,  and 
on  other  misconceptions.  He  wrote  to  the  minister  for 
artillery  and  bombs,  to  break  in  the  roofs  of  the  forts, 
and  for  soldiers  ;  for  to  fight  with  those  he  had,  was, 
he  said,  to  compromise  the  reputation  of  the  nation, 
and  force  his  officers  into  the  necessity  of  dishonour 
or  getting  themselves  killed.  Of  the  last  recruits  sent, 
there  were  not  more  than  one  or  two  over  five  feet  in 
height,  —  the  rest  were  below  four  feet  ten  ;  and  as  for 
their  morale,  more  than  half  had  passed  under  the 
lash  for  theft. 

He  sent  two  engineers,  Deverge  and  Broutin,  to 
explore  the  shortest  and  best  routes  into  the  Chicka- 
saw  country,  —  the  one  by  the  Mississippi,  the  other 
by  the  Mobile,  River.  He  wrote  to  M.  de  Beauharnais 
to  secure  the  reinforcement  of  a  company  of  Cana- 
dians, and,  travelling  incessantly  from  the  capital  to 
Mobile,  he  prosecuted  his  work  of  holding  the  Choc- 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  307 

taw  chiefs  firm  and  solid  to  him ;  and  despite  the 
machinations  of  the  English  and  the  treacheries  of 
Soulier  Rouge,  for  the  three  years  during  which  his 
preparations  lasted,  he  kept  war-parties,  both  of  Choc- 
taws  and  Illinois,  in  the  field,  destroying  the  Chick- 
asaw  crops,  intercepting  their  English  supplies,  and 
harassing  them  into  that  state  of  discouraging  disquie- 
tude which,  although  not  a  brilliant,  was  the  most  ef- 
fective, warfare  against  the  volatile  savage  nature.  His 
despatches  to  the  minister  contain,  nevertheless,  some 
indications  of  other  preoccupations  and  responsibilities, 
—  the  changes  in  the  bar  at  the  Balize  and  the  mouth 
of  the  river,  his  past  experiments  to  keep  a  permanent 
passage  open,  and  his  suggestion  of  a  vessel  which 
could  be  sunk  or  lightened  by  pumps,  to  be  kept 
travelling  backwards  and  forwards,  hollowing  out  a 
furrow  with  her  keel. 

A  humble  sailor  dying  (1739)  and  leaving  his  sav- 
ings to  found  a  hospital  (the  present  Charity  Hospital 
of  New  Orleans),  a  building  had  to  be  bought,  repaired, 
and  furnished,  and  a  residue  of  the  money  kept  for 
future  use.  There  were  also  to  be  met  the  financial 
complications  brought  about  by  the  different  emissions 
of  paper,  card,  and  metal  currency,  with  the  attendant 
miseries  of  speculation  and  usury.  There  was,  as  ever, 
high  water,  overflows,  destruction  of  crops,  sickness, 
food-scarcity,  discouragement  of  colonists,  discontent 
and  desertion  of  soldiers ;  but  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment, in  the  absorption  elsewhere  of  individual  ener- 
gies and  efforts,  seemed  to  rol.1  along,  for  once,  by  its 
own  impetus  over  the  calamities  of  nature. 

Tn  the  spring  of  1738  the  engineers  returned  with 


308  JEAK  BAPTISTE  LR  MOYNE, 

the  results  of  their  explorations  in  reports  and  maps. 
The  Chickasaws,  according  to  them,  lay  at  about  equal 
distances  from  the    Mobile  and  the    Mississippi.     De- 
verge's  route,  by  the  Mississippi  and  Yazoo  rivers,  was 
selected   by   Bienville,  on  account   of  a  recent  peace 
between  the  Chickasaws  and   the  Choctaws,  although, 
as  Deverge'  complained  to  the  minister,  the  correctness 
of  both  his  map   and   report  was  doubted.     Officers, 
engineers,  and  a  detachment  of  soldiers  were  sent  up 
the  Mississippi  to  build  a  fort  and  depot  for  provisions 
at  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Francis  River,  and  another  (on 
the  opposite  bank)  at  the  mouth  of  the  Margot  (Wolf 
River),  which  was  to  be  the  rendezvous  for  the  forces 
from  North,  West,  and  South.     Two    hundred    horses 
were  sent  from  New  Orleans,  and  two  hundred  ordered 
from  Natchitoches  to  the  Illinois  for  the  transportation 
of  the  provisions,  which,  in  default  of  Louisiana  crops, 
were   to   be   drawn  from    the   abundant    fields    of  the 
West.     The  rest  of  1738  was  passed  in  making  prepa- 
rations for  the   campaign.     In  June,   1 739,  the   assist- 
ance demanded  from  the  Home  Government  was  sent 
out,  —  arms,   munitions,  provisions,  merchandise,  with 
a  reinforcement  of  seven   hundred   soldiers,  including 
bombardiers,  cannoniers,  and  miners,  under  the  Sieur 
de  Noailles  d'Aime.     This  officer  was  also  instructed  to 
take  command   of  all   the  troops,  regular    and    militia, 
in  the  colony  during  the  approaching  expedition,  and 
Bienville    was    recommended    to    act    in    concert    with 
him,  as  with  one  "  who    had    all    the  talents  and   ex- 
perience necessary  for  the  command." 

This,  however,  was  to  be  one  of  those  commands  for 
which  there  was  no  computing  the  necessary  talents  and 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  309 

experience.  One  of  De  Noailles  d'Aime's  young  officers 
kept  a  journal,1  which  reveals  one  of  the  difficulties  of 
this  war  with  the  Chickasaws.  By  the  time  his  troops 
reached  New  Orleans,  thirty,  stricken  with  scurvy,  had 
to  be  put  in  the  hospital  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
river,  and  twenty  in  the  City  Hospital.  In  fifteen  days 
the  number  had  increased,  to  eighty-four.  By  July  25, 
sixty  having  died,  and  the  sick  list  mounting  to  one 
hundred  and  forty,  and  others  falling  sick  every  day, 
the  first  convoy  was  hurried  out  of  the  city,  three  com- 
panies, reduced  from  fifty  men  to  forty-one  each. 
Another  convoy  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  men 
were  started  off  on  the  8th  of  August.  Of  these,  four 
officers  and  fifteen  privates  had  to  be  landed  sick  at 
Tchoupitoulas,  a  few  miles  above  the  city.  Four  days 
afterwards,  one  officer  and  four  men  died.  The  rest  of 
the  battalion,  which  the  journalist  accompanied,  left  the 
city  in  September,  having  suffered  a  loss  of  seventy  men 
dead  and  seventy-four  on  the  sick  list.  They  reached 
Fort  Assumption,  as  the  new  establishment  was  called, 
on  October  3,  with  sixteen  men  too  ill  to  rise ;  eight 
had  been  buried  on  the  way,  and  forty-five  left  behind 
at  Natchez. 

Bienville  left  New  Orleans  also  in  September,  but 
making  a  detour  to  invite  the  Arkansas  to  join  the  ex- 
pedition, did  not  reach  Fort  Assumption  until  the  middle 
of  November.  He  carried  with  him  sixteen  hundred 
Indians  and  the  rest  of  the  colonial  troops.  He  found 
his  reinforcements  from  the  Illinois  and  Canada  waiting 
for  him,  —  the  former  under  De  la  Buissonniere,  the  suc- 
cessor of  D'Artaguette  ;  the  latter,  a  company  of  Mon- 
1  Claiborne's  History  of  Mississippi. 


310  JEAN  BAPTJS'IE  LE  MOYNE, 

treal  and  Quebec  cadets,  and  three  hundred  Northern 
savages  under  the  Sieur  de  Longueuil,  constituting,  with 
his  own  force,  the  respectable  army,  for  the  time,  of  twelve 
hundred  white  men  and  two  thousand  four  hundred 
savages.  The  young  French  officer  gives  a  graphic  de- 
scription of  the  encampment,  —  the  French  disciplined 
soldiers,  the  turbulent  Canadians,  the  negro  servants, 
the  savages,  with  their  interchanges  of  feastings,  cere- 
monies, harangues ;  their  war-parties,  scalps,  and  prison- 
ers, whom  the  missionaries  made  efforts -to  save,  but 
who  nevertheless  were  burned,  with  more  than  usual 
horrible  cruelties  ;  and  as  time  passed,  and  the  great  ex- 
pedition promised  was  not  forthcoming,  their  dissatis- 
faction, discontent,  and  desertion  by  large  bodies ;  with 
Bienville  arranging  and  consulting  with  his  officers, 
pacifying  his  Canadians,  and  unweariedly  performing  all 
the  etiquette  of  ceremony,  speech,  and  calumet  required 
by  the  exigencies  of  savage  alliances. 

Bienville's  own  account  to  the  minister  gives  a  no 
less  graphic,  if  a  less  picturesque,  view  of  the  situation 
he  found  himself  in  at  Fort  Assumption. 

As  he  had  suspected,  and  as  Deverge  had  been  forced 
to  acknowledge,  the  latter  had  been  incorrect  in  both 
map  and  report.  The  distance  of  the  Chickasaw  vil- 
lages from  the  Mississippi  was  found  to  be  as  much 
again  as  he  had  computed.  A  new  survey  was  made 
for  a  road,  which  was  found,  upon  Bienville's  examina- 
tion, to  be  impracticable  from  overflow  of  small  streams 
swollen  by  rains.  De  Noyan  indicated  a  route  over 
higher  lands.  Another  survey  was  made,  and  it  was 
found  possible  to  open  a  road  traversable  by  the  artillery 
and  wagons ;  relays  of  men  were  put  to  work  upon  it. 


SIEUR  DE   BIENVILLE.  311 

Three  months  were  thus  consumed  !  In  addition,  the 
rains,  which  had  rendered  the  first  road  impracticable, 
had  so  filled  up  the  bottoms  which  the  live-stock  had  to 
cross,  in  coming  from  St.  Francis  to  Fort  Assumption, 
that  in  eight  days  more  than  half  were  lost,  and  the 
rest,  eighty  beeves  and  thirty-four  horses,  arrived  in  such 
a  state  of  exhaustion  that  there  was  no  hope  of  getting 
any  service  out  of  them.  The  only  resources,  therefore, 
were  the  hundred  and  fifty  horses  and  hundred  oxen 
bought  by  Bienville  and  Salmon  at  Natchitoches,  which 
were  to  be  delivered  on  the  ist  September,  but  of  which 
no  news  had  been  heard.  At  the  end  of  January  it  was 
learned  that  the  oxen  had  wandered  off  and  become 
lost  seventy  miles  from  Natchez,  and  that  the  horses 
that  had  not  perished  on  the  road,  had  been  abandoned 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Arkansas,  whose  overflow  ren- 
dered all  approach  to  it  an  impossibility. 

Without  a  road  to  the  Chickasaws,  and  without 
means  of  transportation,  the  French  forces  on  the  banks 
of  the  Mississippi  saw  themselves  threatened  with  a 
more  humiliating  fate  than  befell  those  assembled  on 
the  banks  of  the  Tombigbee.  The  safety,  the  inacces- 
sibility of  their  enemies  had  received  at  their  hands 
only  a  more  brilliant  proving  than  ever.  Provisions 
were  running  low,  the  Indians  were  deserting,  the  French 
battalion  was  reduced  to  fourteen  men,  the  grenadiers 
to  twenty-eight  men  to  a  company. 

Bienville  and  his  officers  held  a  council  of  war  to 
decide  how  to  end,  with  the  least  humiliation  to  the 
French  arms,  a  situation  becoming  daily  more  critical 
and  untenable. 

The   Chickasaws,  on  their  side,  had  not  been  unim- 


312  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE   MOYNE, 

pressed  by  the  great  preparations  against  them.  Despite 
the  arms,  ammunition,  and  volunteer  aid  from  the  Eng- 
lish, and  notwithstanding  the  tried  strength  of  their 
forts,  they  had,  from  the  first  assembling  of  the  French 
army  on  the  Mississippi,  begun  to  drop  in  the  neighbour- 
hood all  the  anonymous  symbols  and  calumets  current 
among  Indians  as  amenities  for  peace.  A  letter  had 
even  been  found  from  them,  offering  the  return  of  three 
French  prisoners  in  their  possession,  with  whose  good 
treatment  they  were  convinced  the  French  would  be 
satisfied.  Upon  these  hints,  disdained  at  the  time,  the 
French  commanders  were  now  glad  to  act.  The  North- 
ern Indians,  who  had  been  clamouring  to  be  led  against 
the  enemy,  but  who  had  been  restrained  from  policy, 
were  given  permission  to  march.  On  February  6  a 
party  of  five  hundred,  needing  no  made  roads,  immedi- 
ately took  their  own  paths  through  the  woods  to  the 
Chickasaw  villages.  The  French  council  sent  with  them 
the  commandant  of  the  Canadian  forces,  the  Sieur  de 
Ce'loron,  and  one  hundred  Canadians.  Celeron's  mis- 
sion was,  briefly,  to  allow  the  Indians  to  accomplish 
what  they  could  against  the  Chickasaws ;  but  he  was  to 
receive  any  overtures  of  peace  and  bring  about  any 
negotiations  which  would  bring  the  Chickasaws  as  sup- 
pliants to  the  French.  He  acquitted  himself  like  the 
astute  Canadian  he  was.  His  Indians  flattered  them- 
selves they  would  surprise  the  villages ;  but  they  found 
the  Chickasaws  thoroughly  warned  and  on  their  guard, 
shut  up  in  their  strongholds,  from  which  no  demonstra- 
tions could  entice  them,  save  once  or  twice  when 
they  came  out  for  a  brief  moment  to  display  a  white 
flag. 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENV1LLE.  313 

Ce"loron  intrenched  himself,  and  after  allowing  some 
days  of  skirmishing  to  his  Indians,  opened  the  desired 
negotiations.  The  French  prisoners  were  returned,  and 
the  Chickasaw  chiefs  provided  with  sufficient  guarantees 
to  induce  them  to  visit  Fort  Assumption  ;  but  Celoron 
warned  them  that  they  would  not  be  listened  to  unless 
they  delivered  up  the  Natchez.  The  Chickasaws,  equal 
to  this  as  to  other  occasions,  replied  that  although  they 
had  bound  and  imprisoned  their  Natchez  guests  in  order 
to  deliver  them,  unfortunately  some  of  their  young  men 
had  loosed  them,  and  all  had  escaped  to  the  Cherokees 
except  three. 

At  Fort  Assumption  there  was  no  desire  to  prolong 
negotiations  or  force  issues.  The  Chickasaw  chiefs 
were  made  to  appear  in  the  eyes  of  the  French  Indians 
as  the  suppliants  for  peace  ;  they  were  reconciled  with 
their  Northern  foes,  but  their  quarrel  with  the  Choc- 
taws  was  kept  carefully  alight.  Their  excuses  for  the 
escape  of  the  Natchez  were  received  without  criticism, 
and  the  three  devoted  scapegoats  for  the  nation  handed 
over  to  the  French  savages.  These,  with  a  Natchez 
woman  and  three  children,  and  four  English  traders  cap- 
tured and  treated  to  a  free  voyage  to  France,  constitute 
the  net  results  of  the  gain  of  the  war  to  the  French,  — 
unless,  which  might  be  taken  into  consideration,  the 
several  succeeding  years  of  good  conduct  of  the  Chick- 
asaws be  attributed,  not  to  their  own  needed  repose  after 
a  strenuous  effort,  but  to  the  effects  upon  their  minds 
of  the  sight  of  the  French  resources,  and  the  evidence 
of  the  commander's  determination  to  apply  them,  had 
the  forces  of  nature,  which  savages  can  respect,  not 
been  against  him.  During  the  latter  part  of  March, 


314  JEAN  BAPTISTS  LE  MOYNE, 

Bienville  dismissed  his  allies,  who  took  their  departure 
north,  west,  and  south.  Destroying  his  depot  at  St. 
Francis  River  and  his  Fort  Assumption,  he  himself  set 
out  for  New  Orleans  on  the  ist  of  April. 

Bienville,  in  terminating  his  despatch  to  the  minister, 
says  all  that  could  be  said  about  his  failure  :  "  I  feel 
with  grief  that  your  Highness  will  not  be  satisfied  with 
this  enterprise  which  has  cost  the  king  so  much  expense  ; 
but  I  flatter  myself  at  the  same  time  that  you  will  kindly 
observe  that  I  did  not  neglect  a  single  precaution  neces- 
sary to  render  the  campaign  as  glorious  as  his  Majesty 
had  reason  to  expect ; "  relating  the  conjunction,  in 
time,  of  all  his  reinforcements,  his  store  of  provisions, 
more  than  necessary,  had  it  not  been  for  the  inevitable 
obstacles,  his  loss  of  cattle  and  horses.  "  At  any  rate, 
my  Lord,  if  we  have  not  come  out  of  the  affair  with  all 
the  glory  we  had  a  right  to  promise  ourselves,  the  glory 
of  the  king's  arms  has  not  suffered." 


SI  EUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  315 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
1741-1743. 

BIENVILLE'S  sense  of  failure  increased  instead  of  di- 
minishing, after  his  arrival  in  New  Orleans.  His  dis- 
couragement seems  to  have  sapped  from  his  heart  all 
the  old  optimistic  verve  that  had  vivified  his  devotion 
to  the  colony,  —  his  colony,  as  he  had  some  right  to 
consider  it.  Far  from  maintaining,  as  of  yore,  his 
right  and  his  sufficiency,  as  best  man,  to  it,  in  its  mis- 
fortunes as  in  its  prosperity,  he  wrote  to  the  minister, 
June  1 8,  1740  :  — 

"  The  labour,  the  anxiety,  and  the  trouble  of  mind  which 
I  have  had  to  bear  for  the  eight  years  during  which  it  has 
pleased  your  Highness  to  maintain  me  in  this  government, 
have  so  enfeebled  my  health  that  I  should  not  hesitate  to 
supplicate  you  to  give  me  leave  to  cross  over  to  France 
by  the  first  vessel  of  the  king,  if  the  interest  of  the  colony 
and  that  of  my  reputation  did  not  exact  of  me  that  I 
should  put  the  finishing  touches  to  the  treaty  of  peace  I 
have  commenced  with  the  Chickasaws,  and  which  I  do 
not  think  proper  to  hasten  to  a  conclusion,  in  order  to  give 
the  Choctaws  time  to  avenge  themselves  upon  the  Chicka- 
saws and  their  protectors  for  the  insults  they  have  re- 
ceived This  remainder  of  the  war  will  only  weaken  the 
Choctaws  the  more,  and  disgust  the  English  with  trading 
with  our  tribes.  It  is  thus,  after  having  re-established 
peace  and  tranquillity  in  the  colony,  that  I  desire  that  it  may 


JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

be  permitted  me  to  make  a  voyage  to  France  to  restore 
my  exhausted  health.  I  supplicate  your  Highness,  there- 
fore, kindly  to  ask  permission  of  the  king  for  me.  I  do 
not  expect  to  be  able  to  profit  by  it  before  the  return  of 
the  vessel  of  1742,  and  in  case  France  does  not  take  part 
in  the  war  which  is  lighted  in  Europe." 

There  is  no  allusion  in  any  of  his  reports  or  letters 
to  the  jealousies,  piques,  and  contentions  with  which 
the  engineer,  Deverge,  sought  to  excuse  some  of  the 
unsuccess  of  the  expedition.  On  the  contrary,  writing, 
so  soon  after  his  humiliation,  of  the  promotions  among 
the  officers,  he  makes  a  moving  plea  that  they  be  paid 
in  bills  of  exchange,  instead  of  in  the  vitiated  card 
money  of  the  colony  :  — 

"Losses  have  fallen  upon  them,  .  .  .  which  make  their 
life  so  hard  that  it  is  not  possible  for  them  to  maintain 
themselves  here.  ...  I  supplicate  his  Highness  to  have 
some  regard  to  the  very  humble  prayer  which  I  have  the 
honour  of  making  him.  I  know  that  the  officers  who  have 
no  plantations,  however  moderately  they  live,  cannot  sus- 
tain themselves  without  going  into  debt;  and  those  who 
have  plantations  have  difficulty  in  keeping  even  with  their 
revenues." 

To  his  nephew,  De  Noyan,  returning  to  France  at 
his  own  expense,  he  pays  the  tribute,  "  that,  naturally 
generous,  he  had,  upon  all  occasions  upon  which  he 
was  commander,  and  principally  in  the  last  campaign, 
made  expenditures  so  much  above  his  salary  that  al- 
though he  enjoyed  a  good  revenue,  he  could  not  have 
made  the  voyage  without  the  assistance  oi  his  friends." 

While    awaiting  a  response    from    the    minister,  the 


S1EUK  DE    BIENVILLE.  317 

Choctaws  were,  by  degrees,  brought  into  a  more  reliable 
union  with  the  French  than  they  had  ever  been,  while 
their  war  against  the  Chickasaws  was  continued  with  a 
vigour  and  spirit  that  astonished  Bienville  ;  who,  retail- 
ing their  successful  raids  and  skirmishes,  declared  that 
they  now  fought  even  better  than  the  Chickasaws. 

The  year  1741  was  another  hard  one  for  the  colony. 
Two  tornadoes  in  September  swept  away  all  the  crops 
in  the  field,  and  destroyed  all  the  magazines  of  pro- 
visions and  the  shipping  along  the  Gulf  coast  and  Delta. 
New  Orleans  and  its  environs  alone  escaped.  The 
commandant  at  Mobile  and  De  Loubois,  lieutenant  of 
the  king,  described  to  the  minister  the  dire  straits 
of  the  colonists  for  food  and  shelter,  and  the  general 
discouragement  of  the  whole  colony,  the  decrease  of 
population,  the  fears  of  Indians,  and  the  general  in- 
security felt  by  all,  in  Bienville's  treaty  with  the 
Chickasaws. 

The  minister's  response  did  not  spare  Bienville  either 
for  the  abortionate  campaign,  the  calamities  of  nature, 
or,  what  appeared  as  intolerable  to  him,  presumably  the 
cited  decrease  of  population,  for  the  permission  given 
by  him  for  two  families  to  pass  over  into  the  island  of 
St.  Domingo ;  and  he  was  told  that  he  must  find  it 
agreeable  to  conform  to  the  commands  of  his  Majesty, 
which  forbade,  without  royal  orders,  his  allowing  any 
inhabitant  to  leave  the  colony. 

The  desired  permission  to  resign  was  not  withheld, 
and  during  the  two  following  years  Bienville  was  oc- 
cupied, as  he  said,  in  removing  difficulties  out  of  the 
path  of  his  successor,  —  sending  without  intermission 
his  Canadian-commanded  Choctaws  against  the  Chicka- 


3l8  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

saws ;  rooting  out  the  remnants  of  Natchez  still  in  the 
country ;  bushwhacking  the  English  traders  and  their 
caravans ;  preparing  his  outposts  to  meet  an  attack  of 
the  English  in  case  of  war ;  assisting  Pensacola  with 
cannon,  and  his  intermediation  to  secure  the  neu- 
trality of  neighbouring  Indians  ;  instructing  Loubois, 
whom  he  expected  to  command  in  the  interval  be- 
tween his  departure  and  the  arrival  of  his  successor,  in 
his  Indian  policy  and  management  of  the  Choctaws, 
sending  him  to  Mobile  to  make  the  yearly  distribution 
of  presents ;  correcting  abuses  in  the  finances ;  draw- 
ing up  ordinances  with  Salmon,  to  prevent  frauds  in 
the  tobacco  ;  writing  a  memorial  upon  the  "  wax-tree  ;  " 
and  sending  the  reports  of  experiments  and  investiga- 
tions made  by  Du  Pratz  and  Alexandre,  a  botanist. 

Loubois,  completely  reacting  during  the  time  from 
his  former  judgments  against  Bienville,  wrote,  June, 
1 742,  a  handsome  retraction  and  apology  to  the  minis- 
ter, with  a  long  explanation  of  how  his  error  came  about, 
—  through  the  reports  of  an  ill-named  '•  Bonnefoi ;  " 
stating  that  he  had  made  the  same  retraction  to  Bienville, 
to  whom  also  he  had  communicated  at  the  time  his  criti- 
cism on  the  Chickasaw  peace. 

Of  the  financial  distress  and  scarcities  of  the  colony, 
for  which  the  minister  held  him  responsible  with  Salmon, 
Bienville  gave  the  simple  explanation,  March,  1741, — 

"  For  some  time  past  there  has  been  speculating  here 
in  bills  of  exchange  as  in  specie  ;  but  either  because  it  was 
not  so  public,  or  so  considerable,  it  is  only  since  my  return 
from  my  last  campaign  that  I  have  heard  of  several  indi- 
viduals using  all  the  credit  they  have  to  obtain  bills  of  ex- 
change from  France,  and  selling  them  to  the  merchants 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  319 

here  for  card  money,  at  a  profit  of  fifty  per  cent.  I  am 
assured  that  on  the  departure  of  the  last  vessel  some  were 
sold  at  sixty  per  cent  profit.  I  think  Salmon  could  not 
have  known  of  this  abuse,  or  he  would  have  promptly 
stopped  it.  However,  it  has  had  all  the  bad  results  it  could 
have.  Card  money  has  fallen  into  as  great  discredit  as 
'  bons  '  on  the  Treasury.  .  .  .  Everything  that  comes  from 
France  has  risen  to  an  exorbitant  price,  for  the  merchants 
.  .  .  have  to  protect  themselves.  Every  one  has  suffered 
except  the  speculators." 

In  taking  cognizance  of  the  matter,  he  protests  that 
he  has  never  been  consulted  about  it,  that  none  of 
the  financial  business  of  the  colony  had  been  commu- 
nicated to  him,  and  that  he  disagreed  so  completely 
with  Salmon,  who  took  the  side  of  the  speculators, 
that  the  latter  would  not  set  foot  in  his  house.  The 
scarcity  of  provisions  came  as  much  from  the  poor 
quality  of  provisions  sent  as  from  the  lack  of  them  ;  and 
as  for  the  merchants  of  France  appearing  discouraged 
with  trading  with  the  colony,  he  had  not  seen  a  vessel 
arrive  that  had  sold  its  cargo  below  one  hundred  per  cent 
profit,  and  for  the  last  eighteen  months  certain  merchan- 
dise had  brought  four  or  five  hundred  per  cent  profit. 
(>  It  is  no  longer  doubtful  but  that  this  country  will  become 
flourishing,"  he  asseverates,  in  spite  of  all  unfavourable 
prognostics,  and  in  the  face  of  the  complaining  letters  of 
Loubois.  His  difference  with  Salmon,  lasting  through 
the  year,  received  the  prompt  admonition  of  the  min- 
ister, for  both  participants  denied  the  responsibility  of 
it.  Bienville,  for  his  part  of  it,  assured  the  minister  that 
no  spirit  of  bickering  had  come  into  the  rupture,  and 
that  he  had  nothing  to  reproach  himself  with  in  this 


320  JEAN  BAPTISTE   LE  MOYNE, 

regard ;  "  and  if  your  Highness  were  informed  of  my 
conduct  with  this  officer,  you  could  reproach  me  only 
with  too  much  complaisance  and  more  consideration 
than  was  proper  in  my  position."  He  had,  however, 
sacrificed  his  resentment  to  the  will  of  the  minister,  and 
had  lent  himself  to  all  the  propositions  of  reconciliation 
made  by  De  Noyan,  who  had  charged  himself  with 
the  making  up,  and  that  he  must  say  M.  de  Salmon 
had  shown  the  same  disposition. 

In  the  same  letter,  March  26,  1742,  recurring  again 
to  his  Chickasaw  compromise,  and  defending  it,  he 
evinces  the  continuation  of  his  unmitigated  sense  of 
discouragement :  — 

"  If  success  had  always  responded  to  my  application  to 
the  affairs  of  this  government,  and  to  my  zeal  for  the  ser- 
vice of  the  king,  I  should  willingly  have  consecrated  the 
rest  of  my  days  to  him  ;  but  a  species  of  fatality,  for  some 
time,  pursuing  and  thwarting  most  of  my  best-concerted 
plans,  has  often  made  me  lose  the  fruit  of  my  labours,  and 
perhaps  a  part  of  the  confidence  of  your  Highness  in  me. 
I  have  not  thought,  therefore,  that  I  should  strain  myself 
any  longer  against  my  misfortune.  I  wish  that  the  officer 
who  will  be  chosen  to  succeed  me  may  be  happier  than  I." 

His  last  demand  upon  the  Government  was,  conjointly 
with  Salmon,  for  a  college  for  the  colony,  to  be  situated 
at  New  Orleans,  —  a  demand  which  was  refused. 

The  Marquis  de  Vaudreuil,  his  successor,  arrived  on 
the  loth  of  May,  1743,  when  Bienville  took  his  depart- 
ure from  the  colon}7,  never  more  to  see  it.  He  had 
passed  forty-four  years  working  in  it  and  for  it.  As 
a  mark  of  favour,  the  Minister  of  Marine  allowed  him  the 
bills  of  exchange  asked  for,  in  which  to  place  the  pro- 


SIEUR   DE  B1ENVILLE.  321 

ceeds  of  the  sale  of  his  property.  The  fear  of  bearing 
too  heavily  upon  the  commerce,  he  said,  had  made  him 
ask  for  only  sixty  thousand  livres,  which  would  be  about 
the  sum  of  his  effects  and  a  part  of  his  negroes.  He 
had  decided  not  to  sell  his  land  at  present,  nor  the  rest 
of  his  negroes.  His  salary  for  the  last  term  of  his 
appointment  was  twelve  thousand  livres  a  year. 


21 


322  JEAN  BAPT1STE  LE  MOYNE, 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 
1765-1769. 

Our  of  the  oblivion  of  his  after  life  in  Paris  the  figure 
of  Bienville  arises  but  once  again  into  history,  at  the 
appeal  of  the  colony  which  had  learned  to  call  him 
"  Father."  It  is  an  episode  which  local  traditions  cher- 
ish, —  a  scene  the  imagination  loves  to  represent. 

Step  by  step  the  English  had  advanced  in  the  progress 
of  their  domination  of  the  New  World.  Step  by  step 
France  had  receded  from  the  high-sounding  "  prises  cle 
possessions  "  of  her  explorers  and  pioneers  ;  piecemeal 
by  piecemeal  the  soil,  wet  with  the  blood  of  her  martyrs 
to  King  and  Church,  had  been  thrown  in  to  make  good 
weight  in  European  treaties. 

The  English  flag  floated  over  Canada;  its  presence 
formed  a  line  of  demarcation  down  the  Mississippi,  with 
the  exception  of  New  Orleans  and  the  island,  taking  in 
all  the  territory  to  the  east,  and  joining  it  to  their  Spanish 
acquisition  in  Florida.  And  by  secret  treaty,  that  which 
the  English  did  not  take,  was  ceded  to  Spain. 

At  Versailles,  April  21,  1764,  the  king  and  his  min- 
ister, De  Choiseul,  signed  the  instrument  which  in- 
structed the  Governor  of  Louisiana,  Abadie,  to  make 
known  to  the  colonists  the  fact  of  the  donation  of  their 
country  and  themselves  to  Charles  III.  of  Spain,  and 
his  gracious  acceptance. 


SIEUR  DE  BIENVILLE.  323 

It  seemed  too  yicredible,  even  from  a  king  of  France, 
too  base  even  from  Louis  XV.  The  colonists  passed 
from  their  first  state  of  consternation  to  one  of  delibera- 
tive reason.  By  a  precocious  intuition  of  the  rights  of  a 
people,  a  large  and  notable  assembly,  composed  of  repre- 
sentatives from  every  parish,  was  held  in  New  Orleans  ; 
and  to  the  orders  of  the  king  to  Avadie,  they  responded, 
by  unanimous  resolution,  with  a  petition  from  themselves 
to  the  king,  —  a  petition  heart-moving  in  its  appeal  not 
to  be  thrown  out  from  their  mother-country,  not  to  be 
cut  off  from  their  ancestral  allegiance. 

Jean  Milhet  was  deputed  to  take  this  petition  to 
France  and  lay  it  at  the  foot  of  the  throne.  Arrived 
in  Paris,  Milhet  sought  out  Bienville,  —  always,  tradi- 
tion relates,  the  eager  recipient  of  news  from  Lou- 
isiana, and  the  most  indignant  mourner  over  its 
dismemberment. 

The  young  ensign  of  the  discovery  of  the  Mississippi 
was  then  in  his  eighty-sixth  year.  The  white-haired 
Canadian  patriarch  appeared  with  the  young  deputy 
before  the  courtesan's  servitor  who  had  penned  it  all 
away,  —  the  great  Mississippi  river,  valley,  and  delta, 
the  long,  unbroken  line  of  Gulf  coast,  Iberville's  great 
scheme,  his  own  great  colony,  the  city  he  had  founded. 

The  chronicle  merely  adds  that  De  Choiseul  man- 
aged to  prevent  both  them  and  their  petition  from 
coming  under  the  eyes  of  the  king,  who,  in  his  satur- 
nalian  orgies,  far  from  remembering  that  he  had  ever 
had  a  Bienville,  had  forgotten  that  he  ever  possessed 
a  Louisiana. 

Bienville  died  in  1768,  passing  from  his  unknown 
home  in  Paris  to  his  unknown  tomb  in  Montmartre. 


324  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

He  was  spared  overliving  the  final  passing  of  his  col- 
ony, family,  and  friends  under  the  Spanish  yoke. 

During  Milhet's  absence  the  colonists,  with  the  blind 
faith  of  bigots  in  their  king  and  country,  refused  recog- 
nition of  Spanish  authority,  ordering  the  Spanish  gov- 
ernor, Ulloa,  and  his  ships  away. 

Milhet  returned  with  the  account  of  his  fruitless  ef- 
forts. The  colony  fell  into  the  desperation  that  suc- 
ceeds to  hoping  against  hope.  A  wild,  premature  flutter 
for  liberty  broke  out  in  their  councils.  Their  talk,  their 
speeches,  rang  with  a  tone  which  was  afterwards  to  be 
qualified  in  history  as  "American."  Armed  prepara- 
tions were  being  made.  O'Reilly,  the  avenger  of  Ulloa 
and  Spanish  royalty,  landed  in  New  Orleans,  July,  1769. 
On  the  25th  October  following,  six  of  the  rebels, 
as  they  were  called,  were  shot  in  the  barrack  yard. 
Among  them  was  Bienville's  grand-nephew,  the  young 
Jean  Baptiste,  commonly  known  as  Bienville  de  Noyan. 
Six  more  were  exported  to  Cuba  and  condemned  to 
prison  for  terms  varying  from  six  years  to  lifetime. 
The  twelve  had  their  property  confiscated.  All  the 
"chiefs  and  authors  of  the  rebellion,"  as  wrote  Ulloa 
to  Grinaldi,  minister  of  Spain,  were  the  children  of 
Canadians  who  had  followed  Bienville  to  Louisiana, 
"  and  who  had  received  so  little  education  that  they 
did  not  know  even  how  to  write,  having  come,  with 
the  axe  on  their  shoulder,  to  live  by  the  work  of  their 
hands." 


SIEUK   DE  BIENVILLE.  325 


BIENVILLE'S   WILL,   MADE    IN   1765. 

In  the  name  of  the  Father,  etc. 

Persuaded,  as  I  am,  of  the  necessity  of  death,  and  of 
the  uncertainty  of  the  hour,  I  wish,  before  it  arrives,  to 
put  my  affairs  in  order.  Firstly,  I  consign  my  soul  to 
God.  I  wish  to  live  and  die  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church. 
I  implore  the  mercy  of  God  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  my 
Saviour.  I  ask  the  protection  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  Mother 
of  God,  and  of  Saint  John  the  Baptist,  my  patron  saint, 
and  of  all  the  saints  of  paradise. 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  the  poor  of  the  parish  in  which 
I  die,  the  sum  of  one  thousand  pounds,  in  one  payment. 
I  direct  that  three  hundred  masses  be  said  for  the  repose 
of  my  soul,  in  such  church  as  my  testamentary  executor 
may  choose.  1  give  and  bequeath  to  the  herein-named 
Veuraine,  called  Picard,  my  valet,  a  pension  of  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pounds  during  his  life,  if  he  be  in  my  ser- 
vice the  day  of  my  death.  Moreover,  an  agreement  shall 
be  made  with  him,  by  which  he  shall  receive,  by  the  pay- 
ment of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  a  life  rental  of  the 
house  I  placed  over  his  head.  I  further  give  and  be- 
queath to  him  my  wardrobe,  consisting  of  all  my  personal 
apparel,  such  as  coats,  shirts.  I  further  give  him  the  bed 
and  bedding  on  which  he  sleeps. 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  the  herein-named  Renaud,  my 
cook,  the  sum  of  three  hundred  pounds,  if  she  remain 
in  my  service  till  the  day  of  my  death. 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  the  herein-named  Mare'chal, 
my  footman,  two  hundred  francs,  to  be  paid  at  once,  if 
he  remain  in  my  service  till  the  day  of  my  death. 


326  JEAN  BAPTISTE  LE  MOYNE, 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  the  herein-named  Baron  my 
coachman  the  sum  of  one  hundred  pounds,  if  he  is  still  in 
my  service. 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  the  herein-named  Marguerite, 
the  girl  who  helps  in  the  kitchen,  sixty  francs,  if  she 
remain  in  my  service  till  the  day  of  my  death. 

I  declare  that  all  my  property  is  acquired,  and  that  the 
little  which  I  should  have  received  from  my  father  and 
mother  was  lost  during  my  minority  ;  for  this  reason,  being 
free  to  dispose  of  my  property  in  favour  of  whom  I  please,  I 
wish  by  this  will,  as  much  as  is  in  my  power,  to  give  to  all  of 
my  nearest  relatives  marks  of  my  friendship  and  liberality. 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  nephew,  Payan  de  Noyan, 
Seigneur  de  Chavoy,  in  lower  Normandy,  son  of  my  sister 
Le  Moyne  de  Noyan,  the  sum  of  ten  thousand  pounds,  to  be 
taken  from  the  share  of  my  grand-nephew,  Payan  de  Noyan, 
to  whom  I  advanced  a  like  sum  of  ten  thousand  pounds  to 
buy  a  commission  in  the  cavalry,  and  whose  note  I  hold. 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  nephew  Le  Moyne  de  Lon- 
gueil,  son  of  my  eldest  brother,  Le  Moyne  de  Longueil,  a 
diamond  worth  fifteen  hundred  francs,  to  be  paid  at  once. 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  two  grand-nieces,  De  Gran- 
dive  de  Lavanaie,  [or  Savanaie]  who  are  daughters  of  my 
niece  Le  Moyne  d'Iberville,  who  was  daughter  of  my 
brother  Le  Moyne  d'Iberville,  each  a  diamond  worth 
fifteen  hundred  pounds. 

I  make  and  institute  my  universal  legatees  for  one 
fourth,  my  grand-nephew  Le  Moyne  de  Longueil,  son  of 
my  nephew  Le  Moyne  de  Longueil,  who  is  son  of  my 
eldest  brother  Le  Moyne  de  Longueil ;  my  nephew  Le 
Moyne  de  SeVigny,  younger  son  of  my  brother  Le  Moyne 
de  Sdrigny,  for  another  fourth.  My  nephew  Le  Moyne  de 
Chateauguay,  who  is  the  son  of  my  brother  Le  Moyne  de 
Chateauguay,  for  another  fourth.  And  my  grand-nephews 
Le  Moyne  de  Se>igny  de  Loir,  and  their  sister,  children 


SIEUK  DE  BIENVILLE.  327 

of  my  nephew  Le  Moyne  de  Se"rigny  de  Loir,  for  the  last 
fourth. 

I  charge  my  said  universal  legatees  to  pay  all  my  just 
debts,  should  I  leave  any,  —  I  do  not  think  I  shall,  — 
and  to  carry  out  all  the  provisions  of  this  my  present  will. 

I  name  as  executor  of  this  will  my  said  nephew  Le 
Moyne  de  Serigny,  younger  son  of  my  brother  Le  Moyne 
de  Serigny,  praying  and  desiring  him  to  execute  my  pres- 
ent will  as  containing  my  last  wishes.  To  this  end  1  re- 
voke all  other  wills  and  codicils,  this  present  one  containing 
my  last  wishes. 

Made,  written,  and  signed  by  my  hand  in  Paris  the 
fifteenth  of  January,  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
sixty-five. 

LE  MOYNE  DE  BIENVILLE. 

On  the  margin  :  — 

Registered  in  Paris,  the  fifteenth  of  April,  one  thou- 
sand seven  hundred  and  sixty-seven. 

Received  :   sixty-five  pounds.  —  LAXGLOIS. 

I  have  forgotten  in  this  will  to  make  mention  of  my 
nephew  Tayan  de  Noyan,  son  of  my  sister  Le  Moyne  dc 
Noyan,  to  whom  I  give  and  bequeath  a  diamond  worth 
fifteen  hundred  pounds. 

Paris,  the  fifteenth  of  April,  one  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  sixty-five. 

LE  MOYNE  DE  BIENVILLE. 

Registered  in  Paris,  April  fifteenth,  seventeen  hun- 
dred and  sixty-seven. 

Received :  thirteen  cents.  —  LANGLOIS. 


INDEX. 


ALABAMA  MIP^GO,  281. 

BIENVILLE.     See  De  Bienville. 
Black  Code,  the,  273. 


CADILLAC,  M.  de  la  Motte,  189- 
194,  206,  207,. 210,  212,  224,  227. 

Choctaws  and  Chickasaws,  141,  280, 
281,  297-300.  See  Indians. 

Crozat,  Antoine  de,  187,207,  231. 


D'ARTAGUETTE,  Diron  de,  183, 
184,  185,  231,  254. 

Dauphin  Island  (Massa,cre  Island), 
182,  184,  185,  191,  249-251. 

De  Bienville,  Jean  Baptiste  Le 
Moyne,  Sieur  de,  birth,  i  ;  ances- 
try, i,  2  ;  becomes  Sieur  de  Bien- 
ville, 9;  joins  d'lberville,  10,  n, 
12  ;  acts  as  spy,  16  ;  personal  in- 
cidents, 26-29,  "31,  32,  35,  60 ; 
appointed  lieutenant,  74  ;  false- 
hoods attributed  to,  8 1  ;  quoted, 
100-106,  172,  198-205,  246,  247, 
259,  275,  296,  301,  314,  315,  318, 
320  ;  on  Red  River,  107  ;  left  in 
charge  of  fort,  108  ;  at'  Biloxi, 
115;  explores  Mobile  River,  122, 
123;  executive  of  the  Louisiana 
territory,  128;  campaign  against 
the  Alabamas,  132-136;  admin- 
istration of,  147,  148 ;  troubles 
with  De  la  Vente,  148-159  ;  asks 
to  be  relieved,  159,  160  ;  troubles 
with  De  la  Salle,  162,  163  ;  pro- 
visional dismissal  of,  167  ;  defence 
of,  169-172;  vindicated  by  D'Ar- 
taguette.  1 73 ;  placed  in  charge  of 


the  Indian  department,  188  ;  war 
with  the  Natchez,  211-227;  's 
decorated  and  receives  Horn 
Island,  228;  made  Commandant- 
General,  232 ;  takes  Pensacola, 
238,  239;  attacked  by  Spaniards, 
241-243;  retakes  Pensacola,  244 ; 
honours  withheld  from,  256;  lays 
out  New  Orleans,  257;  superseded 
by  Duvergier,  260;  triumph  of, 
262;  second  war  upon  the  Nat- 
chez, 266-269 ;  returns  to  France, 
274;  ruin  of,  277;  revisits  Louis- 
iana, 287;  war  with  Indians,  294- 
314;  final  departure  for  France, 
320;  death  of,  323;  will  of,  -525- 

327- 
De  la  Salle,  Commissaire,  152,  153, 

154,  162,  163,  175,  185. 
De  la  Vente,  Le  Cure,    140,    145, 

146,  148-152,  163,  185. 
De  1'Flpinay,  Lieut  andGov.,  229. 
De  Serigny,   Le  Moyne,   118,  238, 

241. 
D'lberville,      Pierre     Le     Moyne, 

Sieur,  takes  charge  of  Mississippi 

expedition,  10;  returns  to  France, 

108;    second  visit   to   Louisiana, 

118  ;  final  return  to  France,  127; 

death  of,  158. 
Du  Pratz,  Le  Page,  235,  236,  237, 

252. 
Du  Ru,  le  pere,  114. 

ENGLISH    intrigues  with   Indians, 
209,  249,  261,  266,  293. 

GRAVIER,  le  pere,    109,  no,  in, 
146,  156. 


330 


INDEX. 


HACHARD,  Madeleine,  quoted,  289. 


IBERVILLE.     See  U'Jberville. 

Indians,  human  sacrifices  among, 
93,  94;  situation  of  the  various 
tribes  of,  129;  Indian  girls,  180; 
wars  with,  132-136,  211-227, 
266-269,294-314;  general  peace 
made  by  De  Bienville,  186;  Eng- 
lish intrigues  with,  209,  249,  261, 
266,  293.  . 

JESUITS,  the,  149,  150,  291. 
Journal    Historique,    quoted,    253- 
256,  265. 


LAW,  John,  231,234,253,258.   See 

Mississippi  Scheme. 
Le  Moyrrepjean  Baptiste.     See  Ue 

Bienville. 

Longueuil,  Baron  de,  quoted,  108. 
Longueuil,  Chateau  de,  8. 
Louisiana,  government  of,  248,  273  ; 

ecclesiastical  disputes  in,  285. 

MASSACRE  ISLAND  (Dauphin  Is- 
land), 182.  184,  185,  191,  249 
250,  251. 

Mississippi  River,  discovery  of  the 
mouth  of,  35 ;  ascent  of  by 
D'Iberville,  39-60;  second  as- 
cent of,  84. 

Mississippi  Scheme,  231,  234,  249, 
250,  251,  253,  255,  258. 

Mobile,  1^7,  182,  184,  195,  234. 

Mobile  River,  explored  by  De  Bien- 
ville, 122. 


NATCHEZ  INDIANS,  89,  go,  91  ; 
first  war  with,  21 1-227  i  second 
war  with,  266-269  ;  massacre  by, 
279;  third  war  with,  280-284. 

New  Orleans,  laid  out  by  De  Bien- 
ville, 257;  made  capital  of  Louis- 
iana, •^52-264 ;  tornado  at,  264  ; 
described  by  Madeleine  Hachard, 
289. 


I'ENNICAUT,  narrative  of,  179.  180. 
Pcnsacola,  besieged  by  Indians,  ;8i ; 

taken  by   French,  238,  239,  244, 

264,  266. 

Pontchartrain,  Lake,  66,  69. 
Primot   (Tierry),   Catherine,   i,   2, 

4-7- 


RAGUET,  Sicur,  quoted,  271  ;  con- 
demned, 276. 


SAGEAN,  Mathieu,  113. 

Sauvole,  Sieur  de,  73,  74,  75,  77; 

death  of,  115. 

Slave  trade  in  Louisiana,  251,  253. 
Spain  and  France,  238,  263. 


TONTY,  Henri  de,  139. 

WOMEN  sent  from  France  to  Louis- 
iana, 138,  145,  183,  206. 

YELLOW  FEVER  in  Louisiana,  i$.s 


MAKERS   OF   AMERICA. 


The  following  is  a  list  of  the  subjects  and  authors  so 
far  arranged  for  in  this  series.  The  volumes  will 
be  published  at  the  uniform  price  of  $1.00,  and 
will  appear  in  rapid  succession  :  — 

Christopher  Columbus  (1436-1506),  and  the  Discov- 
ery of  the  New  World.  By  CHARLES  KENDA.LL 
ADAMS,  President  of  Cornell  University- 
John  Winthrop  (1588-1649),  First  Governor  of 
the  Massachusetts  Colony.  By  Rev.  JOSEPH  H. 
TWICHELL. 

Robert  Morris  (1734-1806),  Superintendent  of  Finance 
under  the  Continental  Congress.  By  Prof  WILLIAM 
G.  SUMNER,  of  Yale  University. 

James  Edward  Oglethorpe  (1689-1785),  and  the  Found 
ing  of  the  Georgia  Colony.  By  HENRY  BRUCE, 
Esq. 

John  Hughes,  D.D.  (1797-1864),  First  Archbishop  cf 
New -York  :  a  Representative  American  Catholic. 
By  HENRY  A.  BRANN,  D.D. 

Robert  Fulton  (1765-1815):  His  Life  and  its  Results. 
By  Prof.  R.  H.  THURSTON,  of  Cornell  University. 


2  MAKERS    OF   AMERICA. 

Francis  Higginson  (1587-1630),  Puritan,  Author  of 
"  New  England's  Plantation,"  etc.  By  THOMAS  W. 
HIGGINSON. 

Peter  Stuyvesant  (1602-1682),  and  the  Dutch  Settle- 
ment of  New -York.  By  BAYARD  TUCKERMAN, 
Esq.,  author  of  a  "  Life  of  General  Lafayette, " 
editor  of  the  "  Diary  of  Philip  Hone,"  etc.,  etc. 

Thomas  Hooker  (1586-1647),  Theologian,  Founder  of 
the  Hartford  Colony.  By  GEORGE  L.  WALKER, 
D.D. 

Charles  Sumner  (1811-1874),  Statesman.  By  ANNA 
L.  DAWES. 

Thomas  Jefferson  (1743-1826),  Third  President  of  the 
United  States.  By  JAMES  SCHOOLER,  Esq.,  author 
of  "A  History  of  the  United  States  under  the 
Constitution." 

William  White  (1748-1836),  Chaplain  of  the  Continen- 
tal Congress,  Bishop  of  Pennsylvania,  President  of 
the  Convention  to  organize  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  America.  By  Rev.  JULIUS  H.  WARD, 
with  an  Introduction  by  Right  Rev.  Henry  C.  Potter, 
D.D.,  Bishop  of  New- York. 

Jean  Baptiste  Lemoine,  sieur  de  Bienville  (1680-1768), 
French  Governor  of  Louisiana.  Founder  of  New 
Orleans.  By  GRACE  KING,  author  of  "  Monsieur 
Motte." 

Alexander  Hamilton  (1757-1804),  Statesman,  Finan- 
cier, Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  By  Prof.  WILLIAM 
G.  SUMNER,  of  Yale  University. 

Cotton  Mather  (1663-1728),  Theologian,  Author,  Be- 
liever in  Witchcraft  and  the  Supernatural.  By  Prof. 
BARRF.TT  WKXDKLL.  of  Harvard  University. 


MAKERS    OF  AMERICA.  3 

Robert  Cavelier,  sieur  de  La  Salle  (1643-1687),  Ex- 
plorer of  the  Northwest  and  the  Mississippi.  By 
EDWARD  G.  MASON,  Esq.,  President  of  the  Histori- 
cal Society  of  Chicago,  author  of  "  Illinois"  in  the 
Commonwealth  Series. 

Thomas  Nelson  (1738-1789),  Governor  of  Virginia, 
General  in  the  Revolutionary  Army.  Embracing  a 
Picture  of  Virginian  Colonial  Life.  By  THOMAS 
NELSON  PAGE,  author  of  "  Mars  Chan,"  and  other 
popular  stories. 

-George  and  Cecilius  Calvert,  Barons  Baltimore  of 
Baltimore  (1605-1676),  and  the  Founding  of  the 
Maryland  Colony.  By  WILLIAM  HAND  BROWNE, 
editor  of  "The  Archives  of  Maryland.  ' 

Sir  William  Johnson  (1715-1774),  and  The  Six  Na- 
tions. By  WILLIAM  ELLIOT  GRIFFIS,  D.D.,  author 
of  "  The  Mikado's  Empire,"  etc. ,  etc. 

Sam.  Houston  (1793-1862),  and  the  Annexation  of 
Texas.  By  HENRY  BRUCE,  Esq. 

Joseph  Henry,  LL.D.  (1797-1878),  Savant  and  Natural 
Philosopher.  By  FREDERIC  H  BETTS,  Esq. 

Ralph  "Waldo  Emerson.  By  Prof.  HERMAN  GRIMM, 
author  of  "  The  Life  of  Michael  Angelo,"  "  The  Life 
and  Times  of  Goethe,1'  etc. 

DODD,   MEAD,   &  COMPANY, 

5  East  19th  Street,  New   York. 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 

I 


NON-RENEWABLE 


04  997 


DUE  2  WKS  FROM  BATE  RECEIVED 


3   1158  00318  7373 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL 


\ A      000018723   7 


VERSITY  0^  C 

LOS  Ai\..rK 


